


now the dust no longer moves

by Mercia



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Agents of SHIELD cameos!, Ant-man cameo!, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Peggy Carter, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Canonical Character Death, Captain America: Civil War AU, Civil War Fix-It, F/F, F/M, Gay Sam Wilson, Gen, JARVIS still exists because reasons, Lesbian Angie Martinelli, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Other, Political, Polyamory, References to Depression, Slice of Life, its kind of a fix-it but its more an au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-02-29 16:26:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 39,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18781894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercia/pseuds/Mercia
Summary: Isn't there anything else you want in life? I'm not saying there has to be, but… just think about it.In which Steve makes friends with a ninety-four year old woman — again. And they're not old friends this time, but they could have been.[CA:CW fix-it/au]





	1. they will love the better you

**Author's Note:**

> look, i know endgame is out but i started writing this ages ago and it's finally ready to start posting so yeah. At the very least it's a break from all the endgame trauma.
> 
> As always, thanks to my beta <3

The funeral is quiet. Solemn. Pretty much as you'd expect.

Sam's arm presses against his, a gentle reminder of what he has, and Steve tries to breathe.

They're in a big cathedral, very grand with dark grey exposed stone-brick, bright stained-glass windows, lifesize clay sculptures, rows of benches (half filled) decorated with white flowers, as though this is a wedding, and a big wooden cross hanging from the ceiling with Jesus Christ looking upon them, half naked, a depiction of agony on his face and red blood-stained hands from the nails. The people are wearing black though, so much of it that if he squints his eyes just a little, it becomes a sea of swaying black water on land.

Peggy lies in her casket on the stage and those in uniform stand around it as an honor guard, all stern and faceless. What they're even here for is anyone's guess; they didn't even know her, after all. They do not mourn. But Steve knows—He is a soldier, too. Take the orders. Don't question them.  
  
He looks around, at all the old men with medals on their breasts, and a few — probably relatives— civilians.  
  
_What do they know about Margaret "Peggy " Carter?_ he thinks, more bitterly than he has any right to be.  
  
And then he stops.  
  
_What do you know?_  
  
Less than them, probably. Because even after seventy years, it still felt, every time, that Peggy understood him. And what does he know? What does he know about Agent Carter?  
  
She was strong.  
  
Stubborn willed.  
  
Liked her red lipsticks and pretty dresses as much as most other dames.  
  
She liked to take action. Not one to sit back. Probably relied a little too much on herself and no one else.  
  
Soft lips and an unapologetic laugh.  
  
Had a mean right hook, a meaner left hook.  
  
And— no. No, no, no. That had been before. Seventy, in fact, more than that, years ago. None of that is really relevant now.  
  
This was a Peggy which still liked a little touch of red on her lips and cheeks, and curls pinned back (wispy strands of grey framing her face, not brown). But had also finished a war.  
  
Had finished it over seven decades ago. Almost a century.  
  
Had been on bed rest for over four years, Alzheimer's, in a hospital nursing home. Sunny Acres Care Home!  
  
Founded an empire and watched it fall.  
  
Had married, had a family, a niece, a husband, friends.  
  
She still liked to play chess, only short games, though. Her patience for it hadn't improved. Still liked to dunk her biscuits in her tea and roll her eyes at him, exasperated.  
  
And she's had a whole life, one which Steve hasn't even known a tenth of.  
  
None of this matters now, if he's honest. (And he isn't often, at least not to himself.) It doesn't matter who knew which Peggy, or Margaret, or Marge, or Agent Carter, or Director. None of it makes a difference.  
  
She's still a grey body now, old and still and so, so lifeless, with still too many secrets.  
  
Who cares which Peggy Carter he knew? None of them are her now.  
  
Sharon Carter still stands on the stage, locks eyes with him briefly, and tells him to plant himself like a tree and to say, "No, you move." But, though he understands it, he doesn't quite know what to do with it. Not right now, when he is mourning. Still, it's a beautiful sentiment, and just like Peggy to say.  
  
There's slow music playing in the background. A soft lull of harp music, going up and down in little runs and lilting melodies playing in variations. It's probably very fitting, quite appropriate for an occasion like this. Somber, peaceful, calm. And all he can think is, who fucking hired music for a funeral.  
  
It's probably supposed to be hopeful, you know? That sort of 'life goes on' sort of message. Or, we should celebrate the life she had, not mourn the loss.  
  
Thing is, Steve doesn't know what he's celebrating, the only life he can really celebrate is the one already in her deathbed, so excuse him if he needs to fucking mourn.  
  
Besides, he hadn't known life was going to go on when he crashed the Valkyrie into the ice. Hadn't really wanted to think life would go on without him, even if that was the whole reason for it, and that the world would keep spinning to its own gravity, careless to his. Hadn't expected hers to stop when his had suddenly started again. Well, not really started, but almost enough.  
  
It's weird, like he's just waiting life out now. And he still wants to fight for what's right, maybe that's what Sharon means, save people, but he's just waiting. Taking each wave as it comes and not getting any closer to the shore, but also not any further into the water either.

What a depressing image. Maybe he should consider a career in poetry; it’s not too late after all.  
  
And isn't that ironic? Not too late.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. Is it rude to check his phone here? It’s probably not very proper, but the last time he went to a funeral nobody had one so he can't be too certain. Peggy wouldn't mind, he's sure. Although Peggy can't mind anything anymore.

**Nat 🕷: think we've spotted him. Bucharest, Romania. Send you more details soon.**

The text which from Natasha comes just like all the other false hopes or hopes which were a little too late. But it's as the saying goes: better safe than sorry.

Besides, it's almost routine now. Basically. He's gotten the hang of typing one handed now, so he's subtle about it. Maybe.

**YOU: I'll be there**

There's a slightly blurry image attached, half a face, but it's definitely him. Definitely Bucky (even if it's not _his_ Bucky.) His hair is still grown long, but cut slightly neater, although only a slightly because it still looks like he used kitchen scissors, there's a faded red cap pulled down over his head, and he's holding a bag of what looks to be plums.

Sam gently nudges him with his elbow, and so Steve slides the phone back in his pocket and avoids Sam's concerned gaze.

He exhales.

Steve isn't the last to leave the church, but he's Captain America and he's a dramatic little shit, so he's one of them. He tells Sam to go on without him, he just needs a moment to himself, and Sam hugs him tight and close and _alive_ before he leaves.

The actual last there are some civilians he finds vaguely familiar, and it's probably because they're related to Peggy, and it's always a sobering thought to remember people have lives outside the positions they have in yours. Family. He shouldn't intrude any longer, shouldn't linger. He's not the most important person here in Peggy's life. What right has he?  
  
Life goes on.  
  
Sharon Carter catches up with him later, and he tries not to flinch when her hand reaches for his shoulder the way her great-aunt’s used to. She probably notices anyway, she's trained enough (and so was _she_.)  
  
"Steve," she says, offering a small, tentative smile. Her eyes are all blotchy and red, Steve's aren't. "How... How are you doing?"  
  
"All right, you?" He replies as custom. Not even a ripple, just a light bob as he treads the water.  
  
She coughs awkwardly, "Fine. Yeah, I'm... fine."  
  
"Good."  
  
Their eyes drift a little, silently observing others that pass them. He catches a glimpse of Tony ducking into his car, who's been here too, for his Aunt Peggy. They hadn't discussed it at all, but he supposes his presence had been assumed, and Steve hasn't thought about it really. _Oh well._  
  
"It's, uh, good to see you here," she says after a beat, "I wasn't sure if you'd make it."  
  
_Of course, I'd be here_ , he wants to say, _why wouldn't I be?_

"Well, here I am," he says instead.  
  
Steve walks the way to the airport for his flight back to New York—He's a super soldier, so he can. There is no rush, no phone call from Natasha about any sort of Accords, no fast flight to Vienna of all places. (Not yet, at least.)  
  
Just this: Steve Rogers, the concrete pavements, the road, and a world which used to be home.

* * *

  
  
Steve isn't sure why he goes. It's a little like trading one funeral for another. Still, he supposes it's overdue.  
  
Sarah Rogers, or what remains of her at least, lies in a little cemetery next to an even smaller New York chapel. The Church and the Barnes' had all helped gather enough money to afford it. It's small, bunched in, quite a few more graves than there was the last time he was here. But that's to be expected. There's a tiny headstone with Sarah Rogers, loving mother, carer and friend engraved into it, though it looks a little chipped.  
  
Perhaps he should have brought flowers. Or something to clean it with, or... are there grave caretaking kits? Or something like that? Well, it is the future, after all, so maybe.  
  
Still, the bush with the honeysuckle flowers has gone now, replaced by a row of daffodils and purple lavender. Steve plucks a sprig of the lavender off and places it at the stone. Lilies were her favourite, but maybe next time.  
  
Graveyards are weird, Steve thinks. What's the point of them, anyway? Little pockets of ground, filled with bodies waiting to erode. Besides, he scoffs, coffins. What a waste of perfectly good trees. Ma once told him, graves are the scars of the earth. And he sees what she means, little blemishes, fading with time but never truly, and so, so many.  
  
Steve looks down at the dirt, the grass, muddy from that New York drizzle and his boots. What does that make the corpses?

* * *

 

The sun is setting by the time Steve gets back to the New Avengers Complex. Back to his luxury apartment which, yeah, he could admit is starting to feel like home, if he didn't feel so damn guilty about it. At the very least, he can admit it feels like his.  

The rest of the Compound is silent, almost, or at least quiet enough that it's practically silence for someone with super hearing. Tony still isn't back yet, which is surprising— except it really isn't.

It feels like he should say something, should have said something, like _Sorry for your loss,_ or whatever you're supposed to say nowadays. He can't imagine it's changed much. But really, it's his loss too, isn't it? Whose loss is greater? How do you measure that?

It doesn't matter, he reminds himself, it doesn't matter.

He paces around in his room for a bit, unsure of what to do. He's never really been good with emotions. He switches the television on for a bit of background noise, and buries himself in making a coffee. He's never really liked coffee. Too bitter.

The TV is loud and too clear, not nearly enough of that static-y white noise. There are colours on the screen and sharper defined lines, no blank spots, the movement more natural and less fractured. It’s so bright that Steve has to look away for a moment.

The coffee machine whirs, nearly inaudible mechanisms clicking in that seamless Stark tech. (Some things never change.)

So, the future, huh?

“Steve?” JARVIS starts from above suddenly, “I am receiving a call from Mr. Stark to you. Would you like to receive it?”

 _No_ , thinks Steve.

“Yes,” says Steve, “Sure, of course.”

He picks up one of the wall phones because he finds them more comfortable than hearing Tony’s voice reverberating out of the air, and waits for a beat. There's the sound of muffled voices and a hint of slow mellow blues drifting through before Steve hears Tony through the receiver.

 _“Oh, you picked up.”_ says Tony, an odd note of surprise in his voice. What's with people these days and being surprised at his decency? He's Captain America, for God's sake. Surely that's worth something.

“Yeah, of course. What's up?” Sorry for your loss.

Tony coughs, awkward and distant over the line. “ _Sorry, yeah. I've got, uh, I've got someone,_ ” he answers vaguely.

“...Okay?”

In the background, he hears someone huff, sounding somewhat exasperated. Where is Tony anyway?

_“Just pass the phone over, Genius!”_

Tony inhales deeply, shaky through the phone. “ _Right. Uh, sorry about this.”_

There's shuffling as the phone is being jostled over, a shallow, rattling breath replaces the one before.

“Hello?” he tries, cautiously.

A light awkward laugh responds.

“ _This is awkward, huh?_ ” says the voice, speaking for the first time. It's a woman's voice, old, an accent that sounds like it could also be from New York, not Brooklyn though, he'd know.

“Erm,” he begins eloquently, “Who is this?”

“ _Oh, sorry. Silly me. I've lost it, you know, with age. Though I was never as bright as English. Pleased to meet you, finally, well not quite meet, but close enough right? Angie Martinelli,_ ” rambles the old woman, Angie, apparently.

“Steve Rogers,” he replies, even though he's sure she already knows.

 _“Yeah, I'm aware_.” She pauses for a moment, briefly. “ _Hey, what's your favourite music, Steve Rogers?”_ and then she laughs a little, breathily, “ _Steve Rogers_ ,” she says again, as though she's testing it out on her tongue. “ _Hey, can I call you Steve?_ ”

“Uh,” he responds intelligently, “Sure?”

“ _Great. So, what kinda music do you listen to, Steve?_ ”

For some reason, his brain seems to be lagging, and he fumbles around for the correct thoughts to form, and some words. “Music?”

_“Yeah. You know, those sounds which sound like they make sense in an emotional sorta way? I'm not Mr. Fancy, I can't bullcrap my words, okay? Music. What's your favourite kind?”_

Somehow, Steve didn't quite think he’d be having a such a conversation like this today, but it beats the silent brooding which would have gone on, otherwise. Or maybe not, maybe he's supposed to be brooding. Part of the grieving process or whatever. He should probably ask Sam.

“I don't know?”

The lady huffs, sounding faintly amused. “ _God, English never told me her fella was so… bland. You're tellin’ me you don't even like music? The starving actress side of me is dying.”_

It takes a bit before the words actually catch up to his thoughts, and Steve almost drops the phone. He sits down. He's not quite sure what to do with that information.

“Peggy,” he hears himself say, “You're talking about Peggy?”

The voice on the other end of the line snorts. _“Who else?”_

“Sorry, ma'am, but who are you again?”

“ _Don't call me ma'am, Steve. I'm younger than you. By like, a year and a quarter I'm pretty sure.”_ He hears her sigh a bit. Hears her breaths, shallow and rough and wet like she's just lost a loved one. Steve thinks she has. _“Angie. Just call me Angie. I was… heh, a friend_.”

“SHIELD?” he can't help but ask.

Angie tsks, “No. Though I imagine I was the only one of us that had nothin' to do about all that, save a few close calls.”

They're silent for a moment, both of them. The slow bluesy jazz is still swinging in the background, and on his side there are a few noisy gulls and the sound of metallic clacking which he's just come to associate with this century. He stares out the window, at the sky. Most of the orange from the sunset is gone, now, most of it black and only a sliver at the bottom remains. There are no stars, though, but he’s a city boy — there never were.

“It was nice to talk to you.” Steve says, politely, because he feels so tired suddenly, and what does any of it matter? ”I'm sorry for your loss.”

And a wry laugh rings, stiff, tight and hollow. “ _Yeah_ ,” she says. “ _Thanks_.” And then, _“I'm sorry for your loss too.”_


	2. most of them, I built with you

Bucharest is a long flight and Bucky isn't there. He's not here. 

“But he was, though,” Sam reminds him, placing a hand on his shoulder and gripping it firmly until Steve feels the ground beneath him again. “We’re getting closer.”

And whilst it's not strictly a lie, it's not exactly true either. Not really. 

All that's left is an empty studio apartment. Stained walls, an old mattress in the corner, a microwave and a kettle in a tiny kitchen, some stones from plums and apple cores and orange peel in a bin bag. 

Maybe Steve should just stop. He was clearly just here — maybe he's still in the  _ city _ . He's just...running away. And Steve has never been one to run from a fight, but this is no fight. What kind of fight would it be, besides?

Captain America running after the Winter Soldier looking for what? A familiar face? A sounding board for memories? 

Margaret Carter is gone now so how's he gonna reminisce? The old days are no fun if you've got no one to share it with.

He's known all this time, most people in the know have warned him, Natasha and Sam and, hell, even Peggy: he's not gonna be the same. Not gonna be that Bucky Steve once knew. Something different. Even though they've been through change before together, what's one more? 

The air feels stale though, and the noise outside from the busy streets feels like too much colour to look through.

“Yeah,” says Steve. It smells vaguely like someone's sprayed too much coconut air freshener. “Alright. Let's go home.”

* * *

 

The second time Steve hears from Angie Martinelli, it's very much the same. 

He's just returned from the a session at the training centre of the compound, and he's sweaty but also not as tired as he should be. As usual. Still, though he likely doesn’t really need it or not just yet anyway, he gulps down a large amount of water until his stomach starts to feel a little bloated. It's the principle of it. 

“You're receiving a call from the Gardenia Care Home in New York,” speaks JARVIS from above, “Would you like to answer it?”

“Sure.”

Angie’s voice comes out of the speaker fast and rushed and too many words all at once. “You should come for coffee.” says Angie quickly, “Or, no. You don't like coffee, do you? Peg always said. We should have lunch. Bring something nice, like burgers or something. I swear if I have to eat one more meal of boiled veg, I'll kick the bucket sooner rather than later.”

For a moment, Steve just stares blankly at the phone, at a loss. He clears his throat. “Is this this… Miss Martinelli…?” he pauses, trailing off.

“Angie,” corrects Angie. “Or should I just start calling you Mr. Rogers? You’re the old one here, remember.”

“Right. Yeah, Angie.” he repeats.

“So lunch? And look, I don't even care if you bring McDonald's, just bring something I can actually ingest. See you Monday, sugar.” and just that she hangs up, and Steve just stares at the phone stunned. He supposes he could always cancel, but, well, maybe not. 

An odd feeling settles in his chest, strange, queasy, and he has to sit down, just for a second. He's not sure if he actually wants to go meet up with a stranger, who's only connection to him is an old friend, and for him, an almost lover. And why should he? 

What's the point? Peggy is… Peggy is dead, anyway, and maybe he's not looking to make new friends that will die within the next few years.

He takes a shower before heading to meet Sam for dinner. They're going somewhere Steve can’t remember the name of, Sam's recommendation. Apparently he has to try it. Iconic twenty-first century stuff, like the last few times.

Steve uses this expensive coconut scented shampoo and conditioner, which makes his hair feel nice. And lathers into soft foamy bubbles in his hands. That’s another great thing about nowadays. Shampoo. Conditioner. Honestly, it's the stuff of miracles, works wonders for even his super soldier hair and his scalp. Peggy must have loved it.

The water is hot on his skin and he turns it higher and it still doesn't burn and Steve remembers he's a super soldier.

He turns it off and dries himself off with the too white, too soft towels, and a fresh shirt and jeans, which don't feel as scratchy now that he's worn them out a bit and they’ve been through a few washes (fabric softener is a Godsend— seriously.)

“Hey,” says Sam, looking up from his book, “You ready to go?”

“‘Course,” he smiles, “Lemme just go grab a jacket.”

He doesn't actually need a jacket, and it's not even winter, but it feels good to have some sort of layer draped on his shoulders, a physical weight grounding him. The sun is out, and it casts soft rays of warm yellow on Sam's skin, and his eyes, hitting off his cheekbones, his nose and his lips, his collarbone peeking out from the top of his shirt. Steve has to catch himself from staring.

“What?” Sam laughs, cocking an eyebrow. 

“Nothing,” he replies quickly, stuffing his hands into his pockets and trying to control the way his cheeks heat up.

Sam laughs again.

They catch the subway for two stops before getting off, walking the rest of the way. It's nice, light, feels good. It's so easy to laugh and just talk about whatever with Sam Wilson, to just delve in and out of topics to their liking. Sometimes they talk about stupid things, like how Steve doesn't like bubblegum, and Sam thinks that's atrocious (“Honestly, what kinda national icon…?”); to deeper things like what Steve misses, who Steve misses, or how the pillows seem too soft and it just feels like you’re sinking in your bed, down and down and there's nowhere to land.

Yeah, so maybe Steve can benefit from having a counsellor for a friend. And he's allowed to.

The place they arrive at is actually not any restaurant or diner at all, like the last few times. Instead, it’s a sort of park, with a gathering of food trucks, a gaggle of people on odd-benches and a mix of different scents which all smell like food. Steve’s stomach rumbles, loudly. 

Beside him, Sam grins. “C’mon. There’s a whole world of food to pick from here, you just gotta choose.” Sam elbows him, rolling his eyes, “Or you know, if it’s you, maybe you can just get everything.”

Which is not entirely inaccurate. “Hey,” he retorts, “I’m the one paying, right? I can eat what I like.”

“Never said you couldn't.”

As it turns out, apparently Sam comes here quite often, as he seems to know almost everyone here by name, and they seem to know him. Unsurprising, really. Sam's got that kinda character which makes you want to come up to him just to say hi, even if you're strangers.  

There's a vast array of goods being sold: two with classic barbecue items like hotdogs, wings and burgers, which he suspects are in friendly competition; one selling Korean street food, which smells so warm and fragrant and just… amazing; another vaguely British looking one with bunting on the outside, selling fish and chips and other battered things; and an Indian one selling bright red curry, which admittedly he feels a little intimidated by.

Still, he did say he'd try everything.

When they sit down to eat, at the edge of a curb, containers of food laid out around them, it's nice. The atmosphere has that kind of old, friendly neighbourhood vibe, Steve remembers. So even though the flavours are exotic and foreign on his tongue, and someone's speakers are pumping music which is too syncopated and upbeat, it feels familiar. Here, just sitting on the curb, eating great food with a friend, talking about life.

It's more familiar, at least, than returning to the street you used to live after over seventy years, that's for sure.

“Thanks for this, Sam,” he says, just as he's polishing off the last of the chips. “You're a good friend.”

Sam shrugs, not really looking at him, busying himself with gathering up their trash to dispose of. “Nah, don't get all serious with me now, Steve. Besides, you're paying and you're freakin’ good for business.” He laughs. “We should be thanking you.”

Steve shakes his head but allows it. They both know it's not true. 

“Well, I'm gonna go back— I'm sure I smelled chocolate cake earlier. You want some?”

“You're kidding me, right?” huffs Sam, but following him anyway, “I couldn't eat more if you shoved it down my throat yourself. Not everyone’s a fucking super soldier.”

And Steve laughs because, oh, doesn't he know it.

* * *

 

Because Steve is clearly a responsible Prepared Adult, he knocks on the door to Tony’s workshop on Sunday. Which is, of course, the day before Monday.

The door slides open automatically (but it’s more like auto-magically — ha) with a slight hiss and he steps through, looking around. Tony is clearly absorbed in something he's working on at the moment and it wouldn't do to disturb him, because it never works anyway. So, Steve finds himself a seat on one of the lab benches and just watches Tony work, flicking through three-dimensional blueprints on his holograms, and welding away at something on the table, sparks flying. 

There's some heavy metal music playing, screaming words Steve doesn't understand, angry and strangely rhythmic. The heavy bass makes Steve's heart thud harder in his chest, like it's building up to something. It makes him antsy, builds up too much energy for him to just be sitting still in one place. Across the lab, he catches Tony bobbing his head with it, to some beat he just can't make out. 

Modern music, he thinks. So many different types, and one for seemingly any occasion. 

Eventually, as the song stops, the last beats of it ringing in his ears, Tony pauses and looks up, popping off his mask. He raises an eyebrow.

“Yes?” he says, after just a second more of quizzical staring. “Did you need something, Popsicle, or were you just here for the show? Because I don't mind it, I am pretty spectacular, but it's weird if you're just staring at me.” He gives a mock shiver, “Like creepy old man vibes are not welcome unless there is, like, consent. I don't judge people's kinks, trust me.”

It takes Steve a moment to unscramble the jumble of words. So many modern terms, still. And also, just, Starks.

“Eh…” he begins, “How do you know Miss Martinelli?” he asks, twisting his hands together nervously.

“Angie,” Tony corrects, “She told you to call her Angie, didn't she?”

“Right,” he replies. “Yeah, Angie.”

Tony shrugs, holding out his hand, a cup of coffee appears out of the table somehow and into it. He takes a sip. “She's my Auntie Angie,” he says, “I’m not really sure what else to say, other than that. She's just… always been there. Like Aunt Peggy, and Jarvis and Ana.”

Something in his heart tugs at that. More names, and he wishes he could associate Jarvis with whoever Tony remembers, instead of the AI. Wishes he could have seen Peggy become an Aunt Peggy.

He hums, nodding slowly. And Tony sighs, coming to sit stop the bench opposite him, taking another gulp of his coffee, looking uncomfortable.

“Why?” he asks, not looking at him and staring into his coffee instead, “Why’d you wanna know?”

Steve shifts awkwardly, crossing his legs. “I dunno. She asked to meet for lunch tomorrow at the home, and I guess I just don't really know what I'm doing.”

“Well, you better bring something good then,” he scoffs, “It's the only way I ever visit, and she refuses to leave the place because she knows she's the only ray of sunshine that dreary place gets.”

“Oh, yeah,” he remembers, straightening a bit, “She mentioned that. What kinda food does she like?”

Tony waves a hand, “Just bring something greasy. Like burgers and fries and stuff. There's a great place two streets from Gardenia, that's where I usually go. Just don't go for Italian, she knows she can make it better and you'll never hear the end of it.”

He doesn't stay too long after that. It's harder to talk to Tony. They haven't got much in common besides their Avenging. 

He wishes it wasn't that way, but he tries to imagine a life where he sees Tony Stark grow up, one where he sees Peggy and Howard grow old, one where he knows Ana and Jarvis and Maria and Angie. 

And he thinks, maybe if he tries hard enough, he could. But it hurts too much; makes his lungs squeeze tight with the longing and the could-haves, and the what-ifs.

So he can't.

* * *

 

They’re only on a small mission. The base they’re going to is supposed to have been abandoned, according to the intel, so it's just Sam, Natasha, and himself, on it. Like old times, he muses. 

(But not  _ old  _ times.)

Anyway, they're along the outskirts of, low and behold, New York, and there's a run-down abandoned-looking building, which looks all kinds of sketchy. Perfect.

Of course, there are no lights inside, so they have to resort to flashlights. As always. Apparently, HYDRA are a bunch of ominous emo Nazi bastards, as opposed to the regular kind. But then again, HYDRA might as well be the regular kind.

“God,” says Sam through the comms, “It's almost like they watched a cheap action movie and wanted us to find them.”

“Well,” replies Natasha, “Careful. You never know.”

In the end, the mission is kind of a bust. Anything they can find is codes, stuff they already know, and it looks wiped clean. Somehow, Natasha manages to find a few discarded test tubes with weird fluid, but he doubts it's anything actually worth notice. There are a few traps laid, because it's HYDRA and an “Evil Villain Base but there are multiple villains and everyone thinks they're the leader but they're all actually just eachother's henchmen.” (Sam's words, not Steve’s.)

It's places like this, run down and so commonplace, which make Steve realise just how deep HYDRA has run, and how far they've spread—an infection which nobody has ever bothered to cure. How did Fury run SHIELD for so many years without noticing all of this under his nose? Spreading all up and down his nation and the rest of the fucking world, spewing all of this. 

But he almost laughs at that. 

How did Peggy? How did Agent Carter, former Director of SHIELD, miss this? Not when she had already fought them. Not when she thought she had defeated them.

When they thought.

The world says HYDRA and SHIELD are one and the same. And even as he holds the shield on his forearm, the one Howard made, the one which slept for seventy years with him, the real symbol— not him—  he can't help but think: maybe they're right.


	3. it was beauty we were makin’

True to his word, Steve brings a feast of burgers, boneless wings, fries, and—because he read somewhere that old ladies should eat as healthy as possible—a pathetic looking, slightly wilted salad.

The receptionist looks him up and down appraisingly, and at the numerous boxes of food.

Steve clears his throat. “I’m here to visit, uh, Angie Martinelli?” he says, after a beat.

“‘Course you are,” huffs the woman, looking all too used to it, “I think she's out on the patio. Tom can take you,” she says, pointing him to a young boy who looks up from his phone. He looks like a teenager or something, probably a volunteer or an intern.

“Great,” he replies. “Thanks.”

Gardenia Care Home is actually rather large. There seem to be at least twenty-something corridors, that are all identical save some changes in the array of pastel wallpaper colours, before they reach the French doors leading out into the patio. It's a sunny day today, bright, and the garden area of Gardenia is rather nice, too. Secluded and neat with planters of different flower bushes dotted around, a few bird feeders and the like. There are a several patrons dozing on wheelchairs and a few going about with walking aids.

“That's Angie there,” says Tom, pointing to one of the ladies sitting on the benches. “Have a nice visit. And, Rachel — ” he points to another woman, tending to some of the flowers, “ — is there if you need anything, so don't hesitate to call her.”

Steve nods and continues forward slowly (and not at all nervously.)

Unlike most of the others here, Angie Martinelli is loud, laughing ungracefully and unapologetically at something she's looking at on what Steve now recognizes as a Starkpad. He almost chuckles to himself. He should have expected it, of course. Tony wouldn’t allow anyone he cares about to own anything less. Her white-grey hair is perfectly curled and pinned back, there’s a little powder on her face, and she has little white earbuds in, listening to something.

Careful as to not shock her, he taps gently on her shoulder.

“Oh,” she says, tugging out an earbud and smiling up at him. “You’re here!”

“Steve Rogers,” he greets her, holding out his hand to shake, mostly out of politeness.

Angie huffs, rolling her eyes impatiently, but takes it anyways. “Yes, well I know that. I'm not that old, Cap’. I'm ninety-four, not dead, you know.”

He shrugs, feeling helpless. “I, uh, brought food?” he says, holding up the bag.

“Oh good. Well, sit!”

She tugs him down to the bench forcefully, and Steve complies, settling next to her. He doesn't want her to exhaust herself, after all.

“I know you're Captain America an' all, but you weren't about to stand the whole time, where you? ‘Sides, my neck gets tired from straining it.”

She peers inside the bag and lets out an excited yelp.

“Clever man.” She grins, pulling out the first few containers. “I mean I  can hardly finish one myself, not to mention this many, but still...” She gives a satisfied sigh. “...Food.”

“Yeah, you'll have to thank Tony for that. I had to ask him what would be best,” Steve replies, rubbing at his neck sheepishly.

“Eh, doesn't matter who's idea it was. Good food is good food.”

Steve finds he likes talking to Angie Martinelli. She's very chatty and welcoming, and easily perceptive, knows when to stay on what topic, and when it's time to change to a new one.

It's strange, imagining Peggy as friends with this sort of gal. Peggy, all private and strictly business, and all her secrets, and her slight, nervous laughter but steady hand. Complete opposites. But it fits, oddly. He can see it.

They make their way through all the food— okay, more like Steve makes his way through it, but Angie finishes her burger and polishes off a few of the fries, so it's not all him— slowly but surely. He has to hand it to Tony; it really is delicious. Angie laughs at the speed at which he eats, to which he responds with poking at the lack of speed she eats. They talk about the people they have in common (aside from the obvious) Tony, Sharon. She tells him Gabe Jones had a daughter who has a son, and how she worries because she hasn't heard from him since SHIELD fell (and Steve has to ignore the knot tying and untying in his chest.)

Apparently, Angie is a New Yorker too, as he suspected. “Not Brooklyn, though,” she adds, eyeing the salad with a suspicious look, “Manhattan.”

“Ah,” he replies, “Little Italy?”

“Where else?”

She talks a lot about the past, not the past-past (the one which he could have been part of, the one which was so close to being his), mainly just her childhood. Living in Little Italy, the friends she used to have growing up, the way her Nonna cooked this sort of perpetual stew, which always tasted different and yet weirdly the same. Talks about how her Ma would have bitten her ear off if she had to listen to music now, even though Angie herself actually rather likes it. It's grown on her, she says, shrugging. There's so many genres people are bound to find something.  
  
“Besides,” she continues, “Broadway always gets better, and that's the priority.”

“Broadway?” he questions, curiously.

“Oh, yeah,” nods Angie, “Was gonna be a big star and all, back in the day.” And then she grimaces a little, but her smile stays fixed firmly on her face. “Too bad the lights never landed on me.”

“I'm sure you were spectacular,” he offers.

“Nah,” she shakes her head. “That's what English used to always say. S’pose it was for the best, anyway. Couldn't have been a big name if my best friend was a spy. Though,” she pauses snorting indelicately, “Howard managed it; only when he was sober though, which was never.”

“Yeah. That sounds like him.”

Angie fixes her eye on him then, halting there conversation. “What about you, Rogers?” she asks, surprisingly seriously.

“What about me?”

“Yeah, what d’you wanna do?” she prompts, giving him an assessing gaze which reminds him that technically, she's still an elder, in some ways.

“What do I wanna do?” he repeats dumbly, “What do you mean?”

Rolling her eyes again, she sits up. “Like c'mon, Captain. You've got all this time ahead of you, and your tellin’ me you ain't even thought about what to do with it? Geez, I'm real glad the kids have someone to look up to now.”

“I,” he stutters, fumbling his words, “I dunno. I guess I thought being Cap would be it for me.”

She scoffs, “That's the most insanely ridiculous thing I've heard, and I've known two Starks. Don't be stupid, Rogers. Weren't you supposed to be some tactical genius? Where's that big ol' brain now?”

Steve just shrugs rather helplessly. But she's right, he knows. There has to be something else other than this for him. And yeah, it's true. He does have time. Too much of it, and he should probably figure out what to do with it.

“Okay, then. How’s about this: didn't you ever want to do something before the war? I can't imagine the plan was always to go out guns blazing, for you.”

It's upsetting, the fact that Steve has to actually think for a minute about his answer. What did he want to do? What does he want to do? How did he get so caught up in fighting wars that he forgot?

He chews thoughtfully. “I… I was at an art school before I was recruited, that is. Made drawings and stuff. Made some pocket money occasionally, drawing comics for the paper,” he says, slowly, churning the memories out of himself.

C’mon, it wasn't that long ago, was it? At least not for him.

After that, Angie gets it into her head that he should go back, study, do something other than fighting. And though he argues half-heartedly, he isn't sure why. He's not sure why it feels like all he can do, should be doing, is fighting. It's like he's trapped himself in a box, clear plastic, so he can look out and so that everyone can look in, and he can't do anything else.

They move onto lighter topics, mainly because they've only just met, and Steve isn't really sure why he felt so ready, just then, to open up so honestly to an old lady he's only just met, even if she did know Peggy and Howard. She has that kind of presence, he supposes. The kind that encourages openness—A rare, trustworthy warmth to her.

“You should bring some of your drawings next time,” she says, just as he's leaving, “Then we can see what you're really made of.”

“They're not really that good,” he replies, but he feels a small light blossoming in his chest, that there will be a next time. Like he's made a friend or something.

It's nice.

“Oh, shut up, you. I guess we'll just have to see then, won't we?”

* * *

 

**_Today I met someone kind. And warm and funny and surprisingly smart. We talked a lot, and we’re strangers but it felt more like we were just old friends._ **

**_I think we could have been._ **

Steve puts his pen down with a sigh, rubbing his hands into his face. He feels stupid doing this. Writing all his stupid feelings down for no one else but him to read. It's a habit that the Google said he should get into, and he's not really sure why because it's not really helping.

Well, he's only been doing it for a few weeks now, and not everyday like it said, just when he finds the time. And it's not like there's any harm in it either, so why not?

Still feels stupid, though.

Most of the rest of the Team are on various missions, and it's really just Steve. And he doesn't actually feel like doing anything, either.

Like, he could probably just go for a walk or something, work out in the gym, make some food, cross a couple things off his catch-up list. They're all perfectly good, valid, things, albeit some more than others.

Or he could just… not.

And it's not that he feels tired or lethargic or anything, he has plenty of energy from just sitting on his ass all day, but his mind just feels so slow, and flat, and dull.

He hums, leaning back in his chair and stares aimlessly at the ceiling. Feelings are just so… hard.

Dr. Erskine had said: not a perfect soldier, but a good man. And Steve still wonders what that means. Because it feels like, according to the world, there's only one way to be a good man. And it's to be a perfect soldier.

* * *

 

“Hey,” says Sam, nudging him gently on the shoulder as he passes him on the way to the fridge. “You hear from Nat? Says she’s got another lead on Barnes. Montreal, I think?”

They're watching a movie tonight, another one of those _must watches_ , so they're preparing popcorn and drinks and stuff. Something about Vikings and dragons. Maybe they should’ve invited Thor.

“Oh, yeah. She texted me about it.”

The microwave beeps and Steve goes to take out the popcorn, the scent of buttery salt filling the air as he transfers it into a bowl. Behind him, he hears the soft fizz of a bottle of Coca Cola opening — plastic bottles now, instead of glass, and lids you can screw back on.  It's a weekday, so you never know when they might be called and Steve can't get drunk anyway.

“ _So…_ ”

“So?” Steve replies, walking back to the lounge area with the popcorn.

Sam sighs, pours the drinks into glasses, because apparently they're civilized enough for that, and follows him through. They both settle back into the sofa and Sam pulls out a blanket to throw over both their laps.

“ _So_ , what time are we headed out? Tomorrow, right? Or should we wait another day?”

Steve's fingers hover over the remote before he clenches his fists and releases them in the same breath.

“I'm — ” he starts, and then swallows. “I'm not too sure if that's a good idea anymore.”

That makes Sam pause and look up and meet his eyes. “What? Why? Okay, I know we missed Barnes in Bucharest but we're getting closer. I don't want you to just… give up.”

“I'm not giving up, Sam. I'm just saying, Bucky clearly doesn't want to be found if he keeps on running. Maybe he's afraid, maybe it's HYDRA, maybe it's the government. Look, whatever it is...Natasha’s been trying to tell me for months now, so have you, and I _finally_ get it. You guys were right. He doesn't wanna be found, and we can't keep chasing him like this, _I_ can't keep chasing him like this. I guess — I guess he just needs time. Sorry.”

It's kind of a long spiel, and Steve is basically just making it up as he goes, but Sam's gaze on him softens, and he reaches a hand to place on his shoulder and Steve finds himself getting pulled into a warm hug. Sam gives good hugs.

“Okay, Steve,” says Sam, even though the hug is a little awkward from the popcorn between their laps. He pulls back. “Let's watch the movie. You're making me all emotional and shit and we haven't even started yet.”

“Vikings and dragons hardly sounds emotional.”

“You'd be surprised. Just wait until the end.”

Steve laughs and presses play. He's getting better at all this technology stuff, he thinks.

“And don't apologise about it,” Sam adds,nudging him with his arm again. “I'm just glad you're okay.”


	4. I’ve made it this far on my own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It gay (finally not queer bait)

The next time Steve meets with Angie Martinelli is actually the following week. It's actually kind of by accident, not planned at least.

There's been an incident, some other villain — HYDRA, or Doom, or alien, or whatever (they all seem to overlap, nowadays, so he's stopped keeping track) — just near the Home. Actually, the building next to the burger place just down the street from it. (And Steve tries to thing about coincidence and how that's a thing, not always causation.)

But it's fine. They catch the guy, not all of them, but a few (but probably not enough) and nobody dies. The building is a wreck though, including the burger place. And Steve feels really rather sorry for that. Stuff like this is rough for small businesses. 

So because he just happens to be there (coincidence) he makes up his mind to visit Angie. 

He almost chickens out, and Tony gives him a speculative look and a raised brow and tells him he should’ve bought food, and it's a damn shame the burger place is damaged, and Natasha looks away at nothing.

Because being Captain America gives him kind of a memorable face, the receptionist takes one good, sweeping, look at him, with his uniform and shield gripped loosely in one hand, and refers him to room 3B. He's pretty sure he's still got chunks of crumbled plaster on his hair, and ash stains, so he's not surprised. 

When he finally finds her I'm the room, Angie nearly falls off her chair laughing.

“It's so much shinier in the pictures,” she remarks, staring at it, “Though Howard talked about it all the time. Mainly about how he had the last lump of Vibranium left in the world and he made a frisbee. Silly man.”

And whilst Steve should probably defend his chosen weapon, he still laughs at that. “Do you want to hold it?” 

“Would I?” she gasps exaggeratedly, but her eyes sparkle and she makes little grabby motions with her hands. “Pass it over, then!”

Ironically, most people seem to find passing the shield on more sacrilege than he himself. He's given it to little kids to hold, and then their gaping parents, or just people who happen to be in the right place at the right time. Because, sure, it's made if the rarest metal in the world, but honestly… it's just a shield. Just an object.

It's a symbol. (Like him, and he's just a man. Just a punk from Brooklyn.)

He almost helps her with some of the weight, but Angie gives him a sharp glare and he backs off.    
  
“I'm a year younger than you, remember,” she grumbles under her breath and practically snatches it off of him.

And then she has it in her hands, rested on her lap. She looks at it for a long time, just silently. “Woah,” she says finally, and not at all ironically this time. “Woah.” And her awe-filled eyes meet his. Her fingertips stroke along the surface of it unconsciously, ghosting over it.

“It's a little busted up,” he says, “Sorry.”

“Yeah, could do with a paint job.”

After a few minutes, there’s a light rap on the door, and the boy from last time (Tim? Timothy? Tom?) pokes his head through, balancing a tray of tea precariously on one arm. 

“Tea?” he asks, settling it down on the side table anyway, and Steve sees his eyes catching on the shield. Apparently, Angie notices too.

“Tom, hold this for me; Steve, pass me a mug.” she says with a poorly hidden smirk and practically dumps the shield into Tom's startled hands. The boy fumbles a bit with it, blushing pink right to the tips of his ears. 

It's reactions like these, Steve thinks, like Tom's, like Angie’s, which make it worth it. Almost.

“Do you know, I used to want to be one of your showgirls?” she begins once the boy has left, cradling her mug and eyeing the shield which lies in the corner of the room now. 

He looks at her, startled, “You what— really?” 

“Mm-hmm,” she hums, blowing gently on the steam rising from the tea, “Auditioned three times for the USO tour. Never made it, though. Never had the legs, apparently.”

Steve isn't quite sure what to do with this information, to be honest. It's a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle, only to find a few pieces are missing and a few pieces belong to a whole other picture. Would he have been friends with Angie back then, had she made it? Or maybe not. After all, the girls had been nice, friendly, but he's pretty sure they could tell performing wasn't what he signed up for, so he never really got to know any of them. There are a few names he can fish out of his head— Samantha, Dorothy, Elise, Anne— but he can't place them with faces, and a few faces he can't place with names. 

Still, jigsaws are supposed to be fun, pass the time (and boy has he got a lot of that) so it doesn't really matter if the picture, in the end, isn't the same as the one on the box. 

“I'm sure you would have been sensational,” he says, finally.

Angie just scoffs. “Right. Yeah. Don't I know it, hun.”

* * *

 

Sam practically drags him out of the compound today, muttering to himself about how he “can't believe” he hasn't taken him yet and that it is just a “fucking disgrace, honestly” in a tone Steve can’t decide is excited or annoyed, probably both.

He leads them outside and into the car, which is rare, since they usually take public transport, and New York is just… hell.

“Where are we going?” he asks him, pulling the seat belt over himself, even if he doesn't exactly need it, strictly speaking. “Are we going out of the city?”

“Nah,” Sam shakes his head, turning on the ignition, “We're not.”

“So we're taking a car because…?” Steve frowns, uncertain.

“Because we can't go to where I'm taking you without bringing at least ten boxes back for the team. Unless you want both our heads on a stick, that is.”

It's bit of a drizzly day, the furthest buildings are faded out a bit with a thin white fog, and a heavy raindrop are falling, every so often. But it's the good kind of drizzle. Calming and nostalgic, relaxing, the kind which feels a bit like breathing a cool sigh of relief. Or maybe it's just the company.

Sam raises an eyebrow at him as he rolls down the window, sticking his head out of it and into the weather. 

“God, you really are just a big puppy, aren't you?” he chuckles, turning the wheel. 

“What do you mean?” Steve asks, baffled at the connection. Somehow, this only seems to make Sam laugh harder.

“Nothing, nothing,” he replies, despite the smirk fighting its way onto his face, and smiles at him in faux innocence. 

Sam has a nice smile, though, Steve thinks to himself absently. Well, it's not like he just has one singular smile, because it changes. But it makes something flutter in his chest, for some reason, and makes him feel light, when it's happy. Because it's open and honest, bright. Like lifting off into the air. And when, sometimes, it's a little sorrowful, anxious, and it doesn't quite reach his eyes, it catches his lungs and makes Steve want to hug his friend and hold him close and tight and not let go.

It's funny that, how a person can be so important, so wholesome, even when you know they are just a person like any other.

Not like any other, Steve thinks privately, Sam is special. Of course he is. 

Steve's just glad to be his friend.

Around them, the city races and blurs. Even during the day, there are bright, vivid lights, flashing on huge signs on the sides of their concrete buildings, and smaller ones, blinking neon in store windows, all stark against the white-grey smog. It's fantastic and so busy, just like the people which rush up and down and up, which makes Steve smile a little.

Even with all of this, the people, for the most part, haven't changed. 

They get caught in the traffic a few times, but he doesn't mind. He still feels a little mystified at the fact he's cruising through New York in a car and it's 2016, because isn't that just a thing now?

There are a few ways to think about it, he supposes, and it usually just depends on his mood. Some days it's sad and it feels so, so wrong, because everything is so different. But today, it's that he's in the future, with Sam Wilson, who's taking him out to get food. And then it just seems amazing. 

He glances at Sam, who is driving, one hand on the stick-shift and another on the steering wheel. There are other things which are different too. The clarity in which he hears the engine, humming steadily with their gears shifting every few seconds, the rippling currents of the wind and the rattling downpour, conversations of the populous, jittery and flowing on, his heart beating in his chest, and Sam's heart beating in his, beside him.

It was like that during the war too, but then, most of the times he only had to concentrate on the explosions and the battle, whereas now… Well, he can't say it's all that different but at least the moments in between it all, the peace, the quiet intervals, last a little longer.

At another stop light, Sam makes Steve pull out his phone, and tells him to pull up his Spotify playlist, the one which is titled “Steve anti-aging music, because he's an old man atm.” And the music tumbles, twisting and spiraling gradually into his ears in quiet chords and tuneful hums.

The singer's voice is soft and mellow, and accompanies the thrum of the rain and Sam's heart, perfectly. 

Sam stops the car on a familiar looking street corner, they must have passed it a few times before. The rain is a little heavier now, so he's looking forward to sitting down and eating. 

“It's just two streets away,” says Sam, tugging on his hood, “C’mon.”

The sweet smell of glazing sugar and melted chocolate, fruity jams, and syrups hit Steve before his eyes catch the glowing red sign. 

“Trust me,” Sam sighs, inhaling the scents which blend together in the air, and pulling open the door, “Krispy Kreme is a classic. You haven't lived until you've tried it.”

Krispy Kreme, it turns out, is a donut shop, and Steve grins widely at that. Sweet things are much more commonplace now, so much cheaper. So anyway, Steve happily picks twelve donuts, because why not, he's allowed to indulge himself, while Sam watches him amusedly. Sam gets them each one of those fancy not-really-coffee things, frappés, apparently, a caramel one for Sam and a chocolate one for Steve, because “screw it, I'm a grown fucking man and Captain America’s paying”, whilst Steve finds them a table. 

It's not very busy, since it's working hours still, so there are plenty of options, but Steve ends up choosing one in the corner, by the window. 

It's nice this, this little thing he and Sam have going on, it works. It's like a routine of sorts, even if he never actually knows where Sam is taking him first. 

The donuts are, as expected, amazing. Gloriously sweet in his mouth, soft and fluffy with just a little bit of crunch. Everything in the century has such strong flavour, it's almost overwhelming. 

Sam rolls his sleeves up to his forearms before he starts on his portion, which is only two carefully picked donuts in comparison to his twelve. The light from outside bounces off his dark skin, and catches his eyes in a way which makes the dark brown almost golden under his long lashes. Steve swallows. 

“What?” asks Sam, mid bite, “You’re staring, again.” 

Steve flushes, “Nothing!” he replies quickly, “Just…nothing. Was wondering if you wanted some breadcrumbs with that, is all. Birdy.” he adds, with a smug smile. 

Sam kicks him under the table, “Little shit,” he mutters fondly. “No one ever told me Captain America was so damn rude.”

Steve winks, “It's a national secret, you see.”

“Yeah, yeah. I see it.”

To be perfectly honest, Steve isn't sure why he likes Sam Wilson so much, other than his kind, amazing heart, obviously, but out of all the people in this century, he might be the one who’s made it feel most like home. And for now, that's enough. It's more than enough, with Sam.

* * *

 

“How did you get to meet Peggy and Howard, and all that?” he asks, one day, helping himself to another of those Krispy Kreme donuts he bought.

Angie nibbles on hers, humming delightedly at the taste. “What? You mean I've never once mentioned it?”

Steve shakes his head, settling back into the cushions of his slightly lumpy armchair for what is sure to be something interesting. 

“It’s a long story. Kinda. More so with meeting Howard than Peggy, though Peggy is probably the main part of that story, anyway,” she rambles, leaning back in her own chair, and licking donut frosting off her fingers. “I worked at the L&L Automat, you see, all day diner type place, waitressing. Not what I wanted to do, obviously, but it paid — kinda. When those meatheads remembered to pay me. Anyway, it was better than nothing, at least.” 

Angie talks a lot, he's noticed. But he doesn't mind it. It's not in the way that means she just likes the sound of her own voice, but just in the way where she knows she has something to say and she’ll damn well get it out. 

It's nice.

“So one day — actually, I think it was evening, like eight o’ clock, or something — I'm serving some stupid asshole who can't keep his hands to himself when I see her. Hair in perfectly pinned curls and that red lip, you know the type,” she continues, and he nods. He does know. “And so I reach her and we just exchange looks for a moment, because men and just general late nights. When I finally reach her, she orders tea and a scone. A scone?! What does she think this is? England?” 

Steve gasps dramatically in horror, because he's supposed to, and he can see it vividly now. Peggy walking in after a long day of work with a bunch of hot-headed agents who turn their noses down at her when they haven't had half the experience she does, still looking every inch of perfect.

“So I say that, ‘We ain't got no scones here, English, but we got some pie, if you'll take it.’ and she does. Doesn't say what type, though, so I decide that I'll just surprise her. I take rhubarb, cos apple’s boring but rhubarb is still reliable, you know? And her tea of course. And then we kinda just get talking. Mostly about life. Mostly she just listens to me complaining about how much I fail at broadway, and she tells me, a stranger she ain't ever seen before, that ‘Of course you'll get the part, Angie. I'm sure you're a brilliant actress,’ straight off the bat. It's a bit of a hoot, to be honest.” And then she pauses, squinting, before laughing. “And so did you, if I remember correctly. I'm not getting that old, am I? ‘I’m sure you were spectacular,’” she imitates in a mocking voice.

“Shut up,” he flushes , “I was just being polite, is all.”

“Oh, now you tell me,” she snorts, rolling her eyes, and he feels his face getting redder. “I wonder who it was, if you got that from Pegs or if she got it from you, honestly.”

Steve shrugs, feeling a little bashful now. “Then what happened? Is that it?”

“Kinda. We basically just hit it off. She complained a bit about the idiots in her telephone company. And then the dick from before who couldn't keep his hands to himself was still being his usual self, and I'm not quite sure if Peggy ever realised I knew, but I go to the kitchens one minute, and the next he’s gone and there's a heavy tip. And English is just there, smiling innocently. And that's when I think, yeah, I'm keeping her. She becomes a bit of a regular after that, and yeah. That's it, I guess.”

“And Howard?”

Angie blows a strand of hair out of her face and huffs out a laugh, “Yeah, that's a story. I still don't even think I know the half of it. Tell you next time. It's pretty long.” 

It's a little depressing being in a nursing home, Steve thinks. But then he thinks of Peggy, of his mother, of his Howling Commandos, buried deep under the earth. Of Gabe Jones’s missing grandson. He remembers Bucky and his cold eyes and his ‘ _ who the hell is Bucky, _ ’ and thinks, maybe it's not so bad. 

Across him, Angie can still smile, still laugh, still tell her stories and ramble onwards for maybe days. And she's lost perhaps just as much as him, just a little slower.

* * *

 

He brings Sam along the next time, just because. Plus, he'd like to think they'll get along. 

“Wanna see a few pictures of the old days?” offers Angie.  

And Steve thinks: does he?  But Angie smiles as though she knows exactly what he's thinking. “I promise I'll make it fun.”

“Sure,” Steve replies, unsure. “Of course.”

In the chair across him, Sam gives him a long look, one eyebrow raised dubiously. But he chuckles in that easygoing Sam-way and says, “Bet you were a real, uh, dame.  Back in the day.”

“I still am,” replies Angie with a little wink and a smirk, “and, hitting on the girl already? Damn, Mr. Wilson, you waste no time.”

This time, Sam laughs for real, but he still feels his gaze shifting towards him, just briefly. 

“Nah, you're not my type, baby,” he says still smiling, but assessing her expression cautiously, casually. “Sorry.”

Angie pauses, and gives him an equally intense look, or perhaps more so. And smiles. “Oh, so it's _ like that. _ Yeah, well the sentiment is returned, darling. Or at least that's how English used to say it.”

It's like the whole room breathes, for a moment. Just a little rush of the lungs. Both of them turn to look at him.

“Got anything to say?” says Angie, challengingly. And he gets the feeling she's probably used to saying it like that. It reminds him of Peggy a lot, except there’s not really any specific memory he can conjure up which goes with it.  

He shakes his head quickly. “No, ‘course not!”

“Good,” and she lets out a satisfied hmph, “cos you're stuck with a pair of queers so you better get used to it.”

“I am, I am,” he says, and smiles. Sam smiles back. Something funny in his chest flutters.

She brings out a box, and he has to stifle a snicker because of the false bottom with packets of pills covering it. National secrets, huh? But then, they could well be. 

The photos are black and white, of course, with that sort of greying vignette around the edges. It's funny how they could create him and yet hadn't figured out colour yet. No, maybe they just hadn't bothered. After all, even now most things aren't worth making unless they're for the art of war. 

It’s stunning how many people there are in the pictures whose faces Steve doesn’t know. And it feels wrong, almost. But then he should not be so selfish, there are lives beyond his own.

Angie laughs as she recalls stories behind the photos with their friends (Peggy’s and Howard’s and Angie’s and not his). She introduces them to Edwin Jarvis, Howard’s butler, a bloody good cook, and more backbone than he ever gave himself credit for. Ana — his wife — with a uniquely described “cheerfully dangerous” disposition, and surprisingly innovative. Rose, witty as heck, brave, a bit of an adrenaline addict. Daniel Sousa — whose name Steve recognises as Peggy’s husband —  a surprisingly good drinking buddy, bit too much of a worrier, good heart. Maria Stark, clever but quiet, who put up with a whole lotta shit from Howard and still married him.

There’s even a picture of a tiny Tony. And he’s gotta admit it is kinda adorable.

Still, Peggy is smiling in the last picture, though she looks a little older (but not as old as the last time), and he knows her lips are that bright shade of red she loved so much. Her eyes shine and mixed into the brown there’s a hint of laughter, at whoever is behind the camera. She’s wearing a wedding dress. Angie strokes the faded pigment with her fingertips gently, breathing in long and slow. It’s mellowed and painful to watch, and the love behind it fills Steve with this strange cold warmth. 

Beside Peggy is a young woman, slender, with honey dark blonde curls and strangely familiar blue eyes wearing another gown, white as well, a messy smudge of bright tell-tale red on her lips and at the join between her neck and shoulder. There’s a happy grin on her face which makes Steve want to grin as well.

“Mr. Fancy took that,” says Angie idly, though, her voice sounds a little fragile. She chuckles a little, “‘Course it wasn’t a real wedding. Secret in one of Howard’s fancy palaces. Peggy’s dress was from the day before from hers and Danny’s wedding, silk and lace and all — still had her handgun in her garter and everything — and my dress was one of Howard’s rare acts of decency.”

And… Oh.

The other dame is Angie. It makes a lotta sense, actually.

Angie meets Steve’s eyes and smiles a little bitterly. “It wasn’t as complicated as it sounds,” she explains, “Peg’ always had a big heart, bigger than she knew it herself, I’d reckon. She loved Sousa, and she loved me. Still loved you too, I think. At least a little. You get me?”

He tries to swallow, but his throat feels heavy. So he breathes. Out. Exhales. “Yeah. I get you.”

Sam whistles, looking between the two of them. “Love is love, I guess. And you can’t argue with that.” 

He’s right, thinks Steve looking over at his partner, you can’t.


	5. everyone prays in the end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter: a few shits go down  
> AKA - wow plot

Today’s mission is in Southern France. There's a whining alarm that blares in cycles and it actually hurts Steve with his super hearing. Like something is drilling or pointing a hot laser into his ear. 

And it means, he thinks triumphantly, that they're hiding something here. Something valuable — at least to them.

“Worse than my school bell,” he hears Sam grumbling through the comms.

“Do we wanna call back up?” he suggests, because his ma always said it was better safe than sorry.

“No,” Wanda replies, and he can practically hear her hardening her resolve and rising to the challenge. She's a good kid. “We can handle this.”

Like last time, like most of the time, they aren't really looking for anything in particular. Just rats to flush out. And don't get him wrong, it’s always worth it, all the time and all the energy, even if it sometimes feels like they're just going round in circles. But the fact that there might be something — anything at all — is encouraging, really. Makes him feel a bit more alert, vigilant, puts a little more fire in his bones. 

They're all split up, the three of them, at different corners of the base (which is predictably another creepy “abandoned” warehouse, honestly so unoriginal,)  and Steve would be lying if he said it didn't make him at least a little worried. The plan is to slowly encroach inwards towards the centre. A classic strategy. 

Which totally doesn't make him any more nervous.

“Wanda, any idea what they’ve got here?” he says, eying the darkly lit path ahead of him warily. 

“Just a second,” she replies, and both he and Sam hold their breaths. Well, it’s gotta be dangerous, they know that much. People like HYDRA don’t create anything unless its harmful and gonna be used as a weapon. 

(Like you, part of his mind whispers, because no matter how much he recycles Dr. Erskine’s words in his mind — “not a perfect soldier, but a good man” — the fact is, he still created a super soldier, and what else is a soldier other than a resource of war?)

“Okay,” says Wanda just a tad shakily, “I think I’ve got something.”

It’s strange to think of Wanda as a sort of soldier, but it’s not wrong to say she is. Maria Hill had said, he’s fast and she’s weird and we’re not in a war, Captain, but who’s we? Who’s we? There is no-one, except maybe a newborn, in this world which knows peace, and they aren’t in a war? Yeah, maybe they aren’t in  _ a _ war because there are too many to count.

After all, what's a king without a kingdom; a God without a world; a captain without a ship? What's a soldier without a war?

War is still war, no matter what he calls it. And Steve has been collecting them like memorabilia.

“Maybe we should call back-up,” suggests Sam, because the gunfire starts.

* * *

 

“Tony came to visit me yesterday, you know,” Angie is saying conversationally, as she rummages through the bag of goods he's gotten her this time. She lets out a triumphant noise as she pulls put a box of ornately decorated cupcakes. 

“Oh?” he replies, surprised at the suddenness of the topic. 

He’s doing that thing again.

Captain America is, it seems, a surprisingly selfish human. At least in terms of people. 

And it's stupid, he's only really known Angie for a few weeks which is nothing compared to the lifetime Tony’s known her. Auntie Angie he called her, and sometimes it still feels like he should be calling her Miss Martinelli. Maybe it's the captain in him, the soldier; everyone has to be exactly where he places them in his life. 

But that's not real life. Angie exists outside of their lunch meetings, and she's Auntie Angie, Peggy’s friend, failed Broadway actress. And he can't forget that.

“Mmhm,” she hums, picking out a little chocolate one with glittery sprinkles. “Said if I was well enough to eat two burgers faster than him, then I could visit him at the compound, take a look around, you know?”

The cupcakes are good. Steve takes for himself a plain looking vanilla one simply iced with a swirl of white buttercream. It's sorta disorientating how regular things like this have become. 

“So will you be?” he asks, uncertain. Because, he can't really imagine it.

She shrugs, “Maybe.”

It's weird. Steve has lost so much time, and Angie has had so, so much (though never enough — there is never enough time).

And now there's so much time left for Steve, almost too much — but Angie’s is running out.

Just as he's leaving, Steve hesitates for a moment, holds his breath, before asking, “Are we friends, Angie?”

Angie lets out a deep slow breath then, and smiles wryly. "Nah, don't make friends with me, Rogers. You don't wanna make friends with another person from the 30s. Unless you're only looking for something temporary, of course. Then I’m your gal."

He laughs at that (because it's easier than crying), and wants to point out that, really, everything is temporary. And in his line of work, nothing seems to last long, anyway. 

* * *

 

Sometimes, Steve goes outside at night. Just to walk around the city — still lit up just as brightly as it is during day, but in a different way — and explore. It’s not that weird, sometimes. Not unless he goes somewhere he thinks he remembers (which he doesn't.) 

New York is a big city, always has been. And even before the war it had felt a little too big for him. But then he’s always had a habit, Bucky used to say, of taking things on that he was too small for.

Still, it's refreshing. Public transport is slightly less terrible now, so he's free to wander wherever in such little time, but mostly he just goes on foot. Walking is… walking is strangely calming, tranquil. It's easier and nicer to get lost and now that he's not a bony, underweight asthmatic kid, much less tiring. 

He has his jacket — a thin, tan coloured windbreaker — lumped over his shoulders, a pair of fake glasses, and a baseball cap. A cheap sorta disguise, really, but he isn't really trying hard. Not much point. He’s got his phone in hand, and his sketchbook in a plastic carrier bag, and a pencil with an eraser in his pocket. Just in case. Never know when your muse might strike, after all.

At night — and not twilight-y evening kind of night, real night — the streets and roads are still bright and loud. The polluted, foggy, black sky makes the whole city feel enclosed, somehow; like it's trapped in a bubble.   And inside there are ant colonies of people, still buzzing around, some places vivid and hyper with energy and boisterous laughter, and other corners quieter, more mellow and muted. And it's nice to just watch it all around him, to observe it, in between everything but not quite involved and not outside at the same time. Just existing. There. 

There's a slight breeze, nice and cool, fluttering through the air, and Steve forces himself to breathe it in.

He blows out another huff of air. 

Inhales it back in again. 

Someone's shoulder bumps his — just another pedestrian. 

“Sorry,” they mutter, ducking their head and Steve doesn't see their face. 

“Pardon me,” Steve replies, watching as they slip away, turning the corner. 

Nobody sees Steve at night-time. Nobody recognises him. Here, when the moon is up and there are flickering street lights and neon signs instead of stars, he is just another human being walking through the city, breathing it in and breathing with it.

It's all so new, the bright lights of it, and yet it still has that  _ good ol' New York _ vibe, gritty yet explosive melting pot that it is. 

Car fumes mingle in the air, reaching his nose and tongue, along with flavour particles of greasy burgers and pizzas and fries and tastes from all over the place that Steve can't name. 

The sounds of conversation, dissonant music and the people buzz in his ears, and if he tries hard enough he could pick out the words, or each individual string of notes in a melody, if he wanted to. But he doesn't, preferring to let it wash over him in a white wave coming in and going back out. 

And he's walking aimlessly, but here it doesn't feel like a bad thing.

Not everything has to have a higher purpose. Sometimes, you have to do things just because you want to. And that's important too.

Which is what Sam says, anyways, when he has his Counselling Cap on — Steve has been listening. 

It reminds him briefly of something Angie said the last time he saw her: “Isn't there anything else you want in life? I'm not saying there has to be, but… just think about it.”

And it's not like he hasn't been giving it any thought — on the contrary, he has quite a bit. Except, it just doesn't seem...worth it, really, to do anything else other than the orders he's given. Or maybe not the orders, because he’s never been good at following the rules, but the mission.

But then, suppose that's a sign that he should.

His steps follow nothing except after everything — just where they feel like. Sometimes subconsciously drifting away from a dark alley and other times towards, or chasing after a fox rummaging through garbage cans. Even though he's  _ big and strong  _ now he still let's the breeze push his knees in whatever direction. (If anything he put up more of a fight when he was smaller — stubborn brat that he was.)

There's a bench, a few steps more along, old black paint chipping off, dotted randomly under a lampost; actually it's sorta in the way of the path. But there is a bench, so Steve sits, cos why ever not?

Opposite him are some small stores, closed for the night, with the lights switched off inside. A pastel pink coloured bakery, almost fully concealed by the shadows. A drugstore with it’s bright green neon sign still blinking bright against the darkness. A small-ish charity second-hand shop with clothes displayed on mismatching mannequins, half hidden and dimly lit by the lamp-posts in a fiery orange tone. The sight of it is only a little haunting.

The street is still, like it's been captured on film, a tableau of sorts, and the only evidence of life are the noises fading into the city background and the breeze fluttering through. 

Steve takes another breath, feels his lungs full with the air, cluttered as it is, and feels oddly at peace. His soul is still and calm and he tries to catch the moment because ones like this are rare and getting rarer. 

It's the quiet.

* * *

 

They’re in Lagos today.

And it's a proper showdown. Rumlow is there, spitting in his face  _ “Your pal, your Bucky.”  _ Everything happens so fast.

The air is heady with smoke and ash and burning, and it feels like nobody around him is breathing, and all Steve can focus on is the building in front of him, it’s right side up in flames from Rumlow’s implosion. There are… there are civvies in that building — everyday, normal, working people. 

Black fumes rise into the air mixing with the grey, and even though the scent of burnt debris and rubble and paperwork has filled the air, Steve still thinks, with his supersoldier senses, he can make out the smell of burning flesh. 

Innocent lives.

“Sam,” he breathes out, his tongue feels like dry cotton, he can hardly think. Wanda’s presence behind him, shaky in stunned horror, and she’s  _ just a kid, right? _ “We need…we need… Fire and Rescue — on the south side of the building.”

They stopped Rumlow, right? Which was the objective of the mission, they fulfilled that part of the brief. It’s unfortunate — it’s…  _ collateral _ . Right?

But really, Steve knows; there are no acceptable losses, not really, not even for the sake of a  _ mission _ . He thought he was over all that with HYDRA and SHIELD or whatever it was. He’s an  _ Avenger _ , he’s supposed to be just saving lives, simple and plain. No small print, no grey area, no nothing. 

Wanda draws her hands back from where they were held in the air, and brings them in towards herself, covering her mouth, fingers stiff but still warm from the swirls of densely controlled energy — until it wasn’t controlled anymore. For a second all he can see about is that fluid destruction dancing wildly about it, uncontained. And when he sees her eyes — blind of everything but the orange flames and black smoke, the debris of their  _ collateral damage _ , her entire body draws tightly inwards as though she doesn’t want anything to touch her, not even the air — he knows she’s seeing the same.

It’s fear.


	6. i don't want to lose, but i fear for the winners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> holy shit more plot

“ _ Gardenia Care Home, how can I help?” _

“Hello, I need to speak with Miss Angie Martinelli please? Is she available?”

“ _ Alright, give us a second. Please hold.” _

“Thank you.”

“ _...Who’s this? Sharon? Tony? Antione?” _

“It’s Steve Rogers.”

_ “Oh. Afternoon, Steve. What’s up?” _

“I just thought I should call because… Things are getting tense around here, so I won’t be able to make it to lunch tomorrow. Sorry, Angie.”

“ _ Nah, you’re fine. Just bring extra food next time. And bring the shield! What’s been happening? Are you okay? Is Tony okay? And everyone else?” _

“Yeah, I will and we’re… We’re fine, I guess. Working on it. There’s a lot going on at the moment. Look, I’m going to have to —”

“ _ Go. Yeah. I got it, Rogers. I can survive long enough without my regular dose of you big-shot Avengers. Go save the world already. Give my regards to Tony _ .  _ Say hi to the others for me, too.” _

“I… I will. Bye Angie.”

_ “Alright, bye. Bring donuts next time.” _

* * *

The meeting started three hours ago, and Ross is still speaking. It's definitely not the longest meeting Steve's ever been in, not by a mile, but  _ by God _ does it feel that way. At least the Secretary’s sitting down, finally. 

They’re all there, like the man wanted. Except Bruce and Thor, of course —  _ God knows  _ where they are (and they’ve all been trying not to think about that) — and Clint, who technically isn’t part of any of this anymore. Steve looks around the room, one long meeting table with Ross sitting back in his chair at the head of the table, pointing at a smartboard as though Tony doesn’t have at least three holographic devices in this room right now. Still, Rhodey and him are at the top end of the table, right near Ross, with expressions which look like agreement. Steve’s not sure how he feels about that. Vision and Nat are sitting close to them, and then it’s him and Sam. And then at the back corner Wanda is sitting, hunched over a little, and eyes still caught on the board with the video held on pause right at Rumlow…

It’s cruel is what it is, and yet Steve can’t say anything without being unreasonable. After all, as much as Steve doesn’t like this — and he doesn’t, he  _ really really hates  _ it — there are some things which hit close to home. As they should. They need to be more accountable. 

And even though none of them are actually saying anything, Ross is still speaking after all, Steve’s been with the team for long enough that he can tell the energy abuzz around the table because they’ve  _ all _ got some say in the matter. 

The  _ Sokovia Accords _ (and somehow, with Wanda and the dark shadows under her eyes and the quiver in her posture, that’s even crueler) sits on the table, one for each of them. It’s half as thick as the phonebook, and Steve can’t tell if he wants to burn it or write it into a goddamn speech. They don’t go through all, or really any, of the clauses. That’d take  _ days _ , he imagines (probably more time than it took to make up the damned thing), but there’s a lot of  _ why, _ and  _ ideally,  _ and  _ realistically, _ and  _ if you don’t sign it we’ll see it as your resignation.  _

“And it’s finished?” says Sam, gaze hard and unflinching under Ross’s brief look of dismissal, “We don’t even get to discuss it, or debate it, or nothing?”

Ross raises his eyebrows, as though he can’t quite believe the question being asked, and Steve has to clench his fists under the desk. “Well, sure you can discuss it among yourselves if you want to sign or not, but as I said, Mr. Wilson, failure to sign the Accords will be seen as a resignation.”

That line again. 

Ross stands up again, and for a second he thinks the man is about to start the lecture  _ again. _ But he doesn’t, he just gives them all one last look, packs up his briefcase, shakes hands with Tony and Rhodey, and then Steve has to shake it as well. He tosses an utterly beatific smile at Wanda, and leaves.

He leaves the video up on the board as well, still on pause. 

And the Accords. 

* * *

They’re discussing this in the game room because of course they are _.  _ It’s not really the game room — well, it is, officially, it’s got a placard saying “GAME ROOM” right under the window with their “A” Avengers Logo in frosted glass and everything — but they never really use it for games anymore. They use Rhodey’s room as the room for board games, usually, and Tony’s for video games, since he never sleeps there anyway. 

Anyway — they’re discussing it in the game room because of course they are. And Steve thinks, do they even see themselves? Discussing matters of the state, which affect the lives of civilians in the game room, and they do it all the goddamn time. The only time they use any of the official meeting rooms is when they see people like Ross, anyway. And they're discussing the Sokovia Accords _. _

Do they not see the fucking irony in that?!

“Look, the details… they don’t matter right now,” Tony is saying, one hand clutching an empty coffee cup and the other rubbing his eyes. “We can smooth them out once we sign.”

“We can’t guarantee that,” says Wanda, and her eyes look resigned, dull, almost. Like she’s already preparing for the worst. And with Wanda, the worst could be anything. 

“Well if we don’t sign then, I’m sorry but we won’t be able to guarantee a single thing.”

“And if we sign it, without even opening a proper discussion between us and the UN, we won’t be able to smooth over anything either,” Sam cuts in, standing suddenly. He breathes, and sits down again. Because they’re all worked up about it in some way or another. And they have no concrete solutions yet, but they’ve got an ultimatum. “Following orders from a bunch of politicians with their own agendas — isn’t that why we exist in the first place?”

“We  _ exist _ to help people,” says Rhodey, firmly, like he’s trying to convince himself. “And we can’t do that if we don’t exist.”

“Staying together is more important than how we stay together,” adds Nat, frowning. And for a moment, Steve thinks he hears a tinge of fear leaking into her voice. And he gets it — he does, really — but, God, does she  _ hear  _ herself right now? “We’ve made some very public mistakes; we need to gain back people’s trust.”

“And  _ this  _ is how?”

And they’re a mess, sure they are. They’re messy, it’s how they started. Steve knows, he was there. They were built upon chaos and six unlikely people defending a whole city from an army and winning, and Tony saying “fuck you” because the World _ Security _ Council sent a goddamn missile to blow them all up! And they don’t have any solutions yet, but Steve doesn’t think he can stomach just sitting back and following orders again — what part of accountability is that?

People will die,  _ still _ , and Ross and his men who  _ aren’t even out there _ will just nod and write it down and calculate the net gain. And they’ll slip up  _ once _ , and they’ll probably lock up Wanda and take Sam’s wings, or something. 

“Look,” Steve begins, because even though it’s not really said and he butts head with the others plenty, he still feels like the leader of this ragtag team somehow. And they really are a ‘ragtag team’ — they’re sitting in the fucking  _ game room _ , after all. “The safest hands are still our own. And I...I don’t think we can just sign that away.  _ How  _ we stay together — that matters too. Maybe it’s what matters the most.”

* * *

It's been just over three weeks since he last visited. And even though he’s got a legitimate excuse — it’s been a trying three weeks, and technically it’s not even over yet — he still feels guilty about it. He has a box of those luxe donuts Angie’s taken to recently (or as recently as about a month ago can be), and some potstickers from this great Chinese place Clint showed him once, a while back. 

As soon as he walks through the doors of Gardenia, the familiar smell of lemon-honey cough drops and rose scented air diffusers hitting him, a weight seems to fall of his shoulders. 

“She’s just in the Dayroom,” smiles Miss Sally, who by now knows him enough to just smile and point him where he needs to go.

“Thanks,” he says, nodding and heading off.

He’s only been in the Dayroom a few times. It’s an indoor communal area, of sorts, basically a lounge. There are volunteers flitting about with teas and coffees and cookies, and some animated film on the big telly where all the chairs are facing. He smiles as he spots Angie, on the chair closest to the screen, watching the screen, rapt. 

And then his eyes drift up a little further as he approaches and he stops short. 

“Sharon,” he greets her, smile uneasy now, for some reason. 

“Steve. What a coincidence, huh?”

“Uh,” he replies, and suddenly he feels very silly holding donuts and potstickers in a nursing home visiting his old lover’s lover. One of them, at least.

They stand there staring at each other for at least a second too long before Steve feels a tap on his arm.

“Erm, excuse me, Miss Carter, Mr. — Captain Rogers, sir,” stutters out an anxious looking volunteer. “Would you please… Uh— Mr. Antolini is trying to watch the movie and, you’re kind of blocking his view and, uh…”

Steve takes pity on the kid, and, it seems, so does Angie.

“Get over here, the both of you,” she hisses, voice a whisper. “And quiet down too,  _ The Prince of Egypt _ is one of my favourites.”

Steve concedes. Sharon throws Angie a mildly apologetic look, and Steve even more so, and mouths to them that she’s “got to head back to work. Bye, Steve. Bye, Aunt Angie.”

Angie just rolls her eyes, waves and tugs Steve down into the seat next to her with surprising strength.

“Now come on, pass me that,” she says hushed, gesturing towards the boxes of takeout. “Watch the film. We can talk later.”

It's a pretty brilliant picture, he's gotta admit, even as brilliant as all pictures seem nowadays. And it's nice to just sit and take everything in and not really have to think outside of what the movie wants to you to think. It feels like he can breathe, or when he gasps it's at all the right times. And it really is such a  _ great  _ movie. 

The dumplings are amazing as usual, and Angie uses her chopsticks with surprising dexterity. She's probably better with them than Steve, though it's not exactly hard. 

“So,” she says when the movie’s done and the credits have finished scrolling too. “Talk to me, Rogers. What's going on?”

Strictly speaking, Steve's pretty sure he's not supposed to be divulging information with civilians until they've all signed it or have officially  _ not signed _ it. But Angie was Peggy's best gal. Agent — _ Director _ Carter's best gal, so she's probably kept her fair share of secrets. Besides, he knows Angie well enough by now, she's one of those dependables. 

“Has Tony told you anything?” he begins, looking for where to start with this entire mess. 

Angie snorts delicately and puts down her coffee. “You think that boy tells me anything? He’d sooner bit his arm off than give me any trouble about himself. He’s a good kid,” she says, and smiles fondly. It’s weird, her calling Tony a kid, and yet it makes sense too. Jumping timelines seems to put a spin on normal generation concepts, it seems. “I blame that on Howard, honestly.”

Steve doesn’t tell her the whole of it, honestly he’s not sure he can sort the tangle out himself enough to verbalize it all. But she does get it out of him eventually, in hushed tones, because one of the volunteers — Aila, apparently — comes round with the trolley to ask if either of them want tea or coffee and reminds Steve that they’re still in the Dayroom.

When he’s finished, she polishes off her second donut and pauses for a second before speaking. “Look, I don’t know much about all this business, okay. The rest of them… Even Peg tried to keep me as far away from it as possible, and the world keeps getting more and more complicated it’s hard to keep track. But you’re a team, right?”

He nods. They’re… a team, officially. Even though some days it doesn’t feel like it. But then again, even with the Howlies they had their fair share of spats.

Never something like this, though.

“Then you gotta stick together.”

“But—”

She holds up a hand, “I’m not done talking yet. Honestly, don’t you got any respect?”

Steve takes a breath and sinks back into the cushions of his seat. “I thought I was older than you,” he mumbles.

“Stop it. Look, I’m just saying, I can see you thinking about revolt,  _ Captain America _ , but you gotta do things the official way, and you gotta do it together, otherwise that ain’t helping nobody. Even if it takes a while. You’re right, I think, though what would I know. It would be a mistake handing all of it over, signing away the whole thing… but what are they gonna do if you all say no? If you go splitting off, what does that matter to them? To them you’re just another one of those big guns, and they’d only need a few of you. Whatever you do, don’t just roll over and give up, but don’t give them up either. You still got time to think it over. You got a deadline?”

“A few weeks from now.”

“Right, well,” and she sighs, rubs her temples a little. “You know, you got time. You got friends in high places, right? Tony does, and James certainly does. You know how to make them move. You know how to fight, after all. Tactical genius and everything. You break up and you lose. But then, what would I know?”

When Steve walks out, at around half four in the afternoon, and he feels the familiar weight of the world and everything it used to be and might become settling back on his shoulders, it still feels heavy as hell but it’s slightly less of a burden. He knows that he’s got people helping him lift it, after all. And he’ll keep it that way, if he can help it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like shit


	7. so can we just pretend (that we're not fallin into the deep end)

They’re in the supermarket, Sam and him that is, even though they don’t necessarily need to go with Tony able to order in anytime, but it’s nice to have this sort of sense of ordinary (even though nothing is ordinary anymore, not to Steve.) He’s annoying Sam again by ranting about the banana’s again, and he’s pretty sure his partner’s rolled his eyes at least twelve times within the minute.

Mostly because it’s fun and because it’s true — bananas these days are weird and fake and where the hell did the seeds go and they just taste… not-banana-y — and mostly because he finds it fascinating how beautiful Sam can look even when he’s annoyed.

He’s still running on about it — the so-called bananas, that is, though his mind is still going on about Sam (which isn’t weird, is it? After all they’re friends) — even when they’re several aisles over at the freezer section and browsing through the array of ice-creams. Sam is snickering this time, though, because there’s a Captain America popsicle, complete with red, white and blue and the whole shebang.

“Man,” he says, snorting and deliberately putting two boxes in the trolley, “We gotta get some of these for the team. You endorse these? That even allowed?”

Steve shrugs, laughing along. “You know it’s more of a brand than the person, right?” he returns, amused.

And Sam sighs, still smiling but not as humorously. “You know Captain America is only Captain America cos it’s you, right?”

“I dunno, Sam.”

“I do,” says Sam, punching his shoulder lightly.

Steve’s about to reply — though he’s not sure what, exactly — when he feels a tug on his shirt and turns around and looks down. There’s a little girl staring up at him with big, dark brown eyes, and cornrows braided into pigtails with rainbow coloured bows at the ends. Steve bends down and reminds himself that he is Captain America.

“Hi there, can I help—”

“Is that the Falcon?” the girl interrupts eagerly, peering around him to get a glimpse of Sam who is now eyeing between the “Stark Raving Hazelnut” and the “Hulk-A-Hulk-A Burning Fudge” with all too much seriousness.

“Yep, that’s him,” he nods, jerking his thumb in Sam’s direction.

The little girl gapes, eyes wide. “Are you his friend?”

Steve begins grinning now and nods back just as eagerly. “Yeah, we’re friends. Would you like to say hello to him?”

“Can I?” she gasps, loudly enough for what Steve assumes is her mother to turn around from where she's looking at frozen ready-meal packs and notice that her daughter has wandered a little ways off and is talking to a stranger.

“Izzy, get back— "starts her mother before her brain catches up to her eyes and her mouth catches up to her brain, and she gawks. “C— Captain America! Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! My daughter is just young and— "

“It’s no worry, ma’am,” he says quickly and as reassuring as he can. “We’re in no rush, and she was just asking about Sam.”

If possible, the woman looking even more astonished. It makes Steve’s heart swell, just a little, to see someone he cares about so much, so loved and appreciated.

The girl tugs on his shirt again, and he looks down. “Shall we go say hi to Falcon?”

Sam is shining, startled at the attention, but his beautiful smile is reaching up to his eyes, and it's real. The little girl, Izzy, bounces up and down and asks questions and says that he should make the wings rainbow coloured or like butterfly wings, and hugs Sam's side. And Sam laughs along and nods seriously and ruffles her head gently.

The mom snaps a few pictures of the two and at least a dozen selfies with all of them, and when the little girl says she wants to be just like the Falcon, Sam blushes.

It's kinda an honor, he knows, that he's friends with Sam Wilson. That they can go to the supermarket together and laugh about frozen goods with their names on them or that Sam will roll his eyes at Steve and bananas, or that they can fight side by side with each other. It warms Steve to the core because Sam’s laughs are bright and full and welcoming, and that's a rarity in people.

“Oh,” Sam says after, pushing their trolley over to the cashier. “That was nice.”

Steve nods in agreement. It was. He knows Sam’s probably not used to getting fussed over more than Steve by civilians, and that's okay too, but a part of it makes him angry a little. That people can see Captain America or Thor or Iron Man and not see Sam. Things are better, yeah, but they aren't great.

Like, he has enhanced senses so he’s heard Sam’s heart rate pick up more when speaking to cops pulling them over than deep into a HYDRA base, as though Sam has committed a crime other than existing, apparently.

“Yeah,” says Steve. And he feels oddly choked for such a mundane moment, here at the store of all things. “Yeah, it was.”

* * *

“Everyone’s read it, right? Every last word?”

They’re in the games room again, crowded in, him and Sam on one couch with Natasha perched on the arm next to him, Tony and Rhodey on the couch opposite them, Wanda sitting on a beanbag and Vision handing her a cup of coffee. It seems like no better place for it.

“Course,” says Tony, leaning back all casual and waving the book around like it’s not the thing which writes away their ability to save the world. “Made little annotations and everything.”

“Good,” Steve nods, and looks each one of them in the eye, nudges Nat with his shoulder. “Cos the only way we’re gonna have a hope of sorting this out is together. Let’s put our back into it.”

They present their thoughts one at a time, like sitting in on one of Sam’s old VA sessions, or once when he went with Clint to pick Lila up from school and they were playing circle time. Everyone has a pen in hand scribbling notes, as though this is the official meeting room rather than the game room, but it works for them.

 

They each have about five cups of coffee (except Vision, and Tony who’s had at least six to begin with) before Rhodey, ever the voice of reason, send them all off to bed. And they haven’t found a solution, nowhere near, if they’re gonna be honest about it. But it’s a start in the right direction, Steve thinks.

* * *

“Has anyone ever told you, you're a terrible liar? Cos you are and I'm telling you now.”

Steve blinks, surprised. “Yeah, It's been said. Why?”

“It's rude to lie to old ladies,” Angie tuts, “and it's like someone once told you liars can't look people in the eye and so now whenever you lie you just stare too intensely. Seriously, I’d know. I'm an actress, honey.”

She fixes him a cutting look, eyes narrowed.

“What?”

“You should take a break,” she shrugs. “You have the money, and you can bring your fella with you as well.”

“My ‘fella’?” echoes Steve incredulously.

Angie hums, and this time her eyes are glinting with something mischievous. “Yeah, what's his name? Sam? You're cute, the two of you.”

Steve is a damn fool, though, and he can feel himself blushing, even as he shakes his head stubbornly and replies. "What? No, no we're just friends - partners. That's all. He's the guy that catches me. My guardian angel or something."

"Guardian angel, huh? That's what I used to think about Peg." She sighs, wistfully.

"Used to?"

"Well she's dead now, ain't she? Besides," and she pauses, takes a sip of her coffee. "You shouldn't place him on a pedestal. God knows, it's a long way to fall."

* * *

Steve gasps awake with the frantic thudding of a jumping heart beating in his loudly in his ears. It takes a moment — he breathes in deeply and lets the air whistle out his nose, once, twice — before he realises that the pulsing in his ears doesn't belong to him.

He pulls himself to sit up, glancing blearily at the clock next to his bed. 3:46AM. It’s the correct time for sleeping, and dreaming; and not for getting out of bed and putting a shirt on and pouring two glasses of water. One for him and one for his partner next door. Steve does anyway.

Sam's door is never locked, at least not to Steve, so he's able to slip in without any hassle. It's pitch black in the room, the darkness is thick, and the air feels static and stilted despite the air conditioning. Somewhere in the room, Steve hears the sounds of shallow choking, gasping breaths, and hollow sobs. Steve inches his way forward until he reaches where he remembers the wall lamp to be and flicks the switch.

The king-sized bed sits pushed into the very corner of Sam’s room, and even with the lamp on, its position casts it in shadows. The rest of the room is neat and organized, with just enough mess spilling out the seams for it to feel real. Sam’s uniform is bundled haphazardly on his desk chair, there’s a pile of unsorted laundry still, the desk has a few documents and pens left out, and a few of Steve’s sketches are pinned onto the wall with randomly coloured thumb-tacks. The ones with little scenes of New York or wherever else, indistinguishable faces blended into the crowd, or idyllic scenes of peaceful nature.

Steve steps further into the room slowly, quietly, towards the corner. The covers are half kicked off the bed, and half tangled into the legs of its occupant like an animal snare.

“Sam,” begins Steve, before he realises he’s desperately unsure of what to do. He reaches one hand to Sam’s quivering shoulder, perhaps to shake it, and Sam whimpers.

“No — no, no, no,” he’s saying, voice cracking, still asleep, and he kicks the air again, tries to back away further into the wall and gasps as the sheets catch his ankles again. “No, please — _Riley!_ ”

And he looks so small and so damn scared, and not like the Falcon who flies like it’s in his nature and catches Captain America no matter what.

“Sam, wake up,” Steve tries again, this time using both hands to hold him still, and Sam cries, struggling in his grasp. “Sam, Sammy, wake up. It’s — it’s just a dream.”

The last cry stutters for a second, and then, “Steve?”

“Hey, Sam,” says Steve, letting go, finally, and releasing a breath.

Sam doesn't say anything for a while, collapsing back, breathing loud and shallow and gasping. After a moment, Steve’s brain finally clicks into gear and he does his best to gather Sam into his arms.

The room is filled with this static energy and it makes Steve itch like some sort of fight or flight response, but neither of those are options here.

“I'm sorry,” says Sam, quiet, still shaky.

“What?” Steve replies, “No, don't be!”

“I'm sorry,” says Sam again. “You should have to deal with this, with me. I'm—” and he lets out another choked sob and Steve's chest tightens. “Fuck, I'm sorry.”

Please don't be sorry, Steve wants to say. Please don't be sorry, just be okay. I need you to be the one that's okay.

But he doesn't say that because that's unfair. Sam… Sam is allowed to have nightmares and wake up panicked, and it's not great of course but Sam is human. And he's always there for Steve.

“Just breathe,” Steve says softly and feels Sam lean into him, all weak-limbed and utterly exhausted. He tries not to tense. “It's okay. Just breathe.”

* * *

It's a sunny afternoon, so naturally, they are in the Garden again. Steve's brought fancy bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon and everything. More and more, now, people are getting used to his presence, there are less visitors or folks coming out of their dozings saying “Is that Angie with Captain America?”

They're, both of them, drawing the same branch of lavender with a little bee flying about it lazily. Steve has his usual charcoals and a few coloured pencils, and Angie has the Starkpad sitting in her lap and a stylus.

“You're doing well,” she says looking over his shoulder.

She's not half bad, either, like it's recognisable, just a little abstract.

“Thanks,” Steve replies. “So are you.”

Angie doesn’t reply, instead looking back to her sketch, messy and colourful, and begins to sort of half-hum idly. Just a little variation, the same one, over and over again, sometimes stopping and starting at different moments. Vaguely, Steve feels something stirring within him, and before he can catch himself he’s humming along too, a few words beginning to filter in with the rhythm, a song his mother used to love back then.

It’s got that kind of funk, with jazzy intervals, and slightly syncopated.

He catches Angie’s eye and she smiles, getting more into it now, filling in the blanks each other are missing, tapping their feet.

 _“..._ _I'm discontented with homes that are rented…”_

_“...so I have made up my own…”_

Angie pauses and pauses him with a pointed glance before singing clearly, “ _So I have_ invented _my own._ ”

Steve grins, and they both just hum the next part.

_“...lights where we chase is unknown…”_

_“Far from the city…”_

_“...caress the streams…”_

They’re both gradually speeding up, mixing up the tempo a little, but he’s having fun and they both know the next part.

_“...Cozy to hide in, to live side by side in, don't let it abide in my dream! Picture you upon my knee, just tea for two, and two for tea.”_

They trail off before the end of the verse, Steve getting more and more off-key, and Angie, though she has a fabulous voice, especially for a ninety-four year old, trails off because she’s beginning to laugh. At him, probably.

“They never said Captain America was so abysmal in those USO parades,” she says.

“I didn't sing,” Steve replies, letting put a laugh. “All I had to do was sock old Adolf in the face.”

“Pfft, men are always getting off easy. Shouldn't have called it the damned Captain America show. Didn't you at least dance?”

“A bit. Mostly yelled a bit of ‘truth, justice and honour’ to the troops.”

Angie leans back in her seat a little, letting out a sigh.

“Doesn't sound too bad. More theatre jobs than I ever had. I would've paid to see that.”

He shrugs, looking back to the bee.

“I didn't ask for it. S’not what I signed up for.”

The bee buzzes away, nearer to some daffodils instead where one of its companions are, and they both follow it with their gaze.

Angie's grin turns soft and she reaches out to touch his hand and squeezes gently. “Yeah, well neither was this, I'd imagine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can u tell that if anyone other than sam wilson became the next cap i would have sued
> 
> thanks for reading <3


	8. Don't go (holding your breath)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we love angst

**_SAM🦅: Hey, where u at? Wanna go get lunch I kno this rlly good Spanish tapas place ;)_ **

**_YOU: oh. Sorry Sam, I'm with Angie at the moment. Might be back late._ **

**_SAM🦅: Oh, it’s chill._ **

**_SAM🦅: You missed Monday as well tho._ **

**_YOU: I’ve just been busy. Nothing to worry about :)_ **

**_SAM🦅: We’ve all been busy. Dont work urself too hard okay? Have a good time w angie. Say hi for me._ **

**_YOU: Will do._ **

**_YOU: She says hi back_ **

**_SAM🦅: nice. See ya then_ **

**_YOU: bye_ **

* * *

 

It goes like this: Ross comes in, all high and mighty like he knows what to expect. Because usually they don't say anything, just trade unsubtle glances across the room at each other. It starts off the same as all their last meetings. Ross pulls up another slide, mentions how the council are still waiting on their decision, starts talking about actions having  _ consequences _ .

The man lasts about an hour, two-thirds of the way through discussing what happens if they fail to abide by the Accords, and some detainment facility...

Then Rhodey raises his hand. Steve tries not to smile. 

“Yes, Colonel Rhodes?” Ross says, surprised that, for once, any of them are saying something.

They start off with nitpicking the small things. 

(Or at least as small as they can be. Which isn’t much, unsurprisingly.)

James clears his throat and clicks his pen. “So when you say there's a containment facility for criminalized enhanced… care to specify? I noticed you did not disclose any location, or regulations on what the conditions would be like, or how that differs per individual, since there's no way you can have only one set regulation for all enhanced. If me, Tony and Wilson are signing, we aren't enhanced, technically, but our signatures are on there as well — how're you going to classify that? You haven't said. All that's written in this clause is that the council maintains the ultimate right to deem an enhanced unsafe, and that the enhanced should be contained peacefully. Sure you've added that, the council  _ may _ allow some sort of trial to be held, but you haven't made any sort of basis of how that trial will be held. It's sloppy, Mr. Secretary. That's what it is.”

Somehow, Rhodes still manages to say all this while fixing Ross with a scrutinizing yet politically polite expression. He's definitely the most well spoken man he knows, probably. It's a good thing he's too damn honourable to be a politician. 

“Colonel Rhodes, I can assure you—”

“And what good are  _ your _ assurances to us,” Sam almost sneers, arms crossed over his chest. “It's not written down nowhere.”

“Mr. Wilson— “

“That's  _ Sergeant  _ Wilson. And I get that you've got people to report to, same as everybody else, so I'm asking you again, what good are your  _ assurances? _ ”

“We've got questions, Sir,” adds Natasha, eyes bright and analytical. “Not just these ones. And we need answers, if you really want  _ any  _ of us to sign.”

There, they've said it. Laid it out plain. They’re not going to get a single one of them unless they all decide together. And as sad as it is, the world needs them.

“We would like to arrange a meeting with the council,” says Steve, and feels the rest of them levelling Ross with the same firm look he is. A united front. They've literally backed him into a corner. “Tell them that some compromises will be made. There are discussions to be had. We need to make solutions and we are going to be involved in making them.”

“And tell them to push back the deadline, too. Less than three weeks isn't going to cut it.” Tony adds, and pushes his shades up on the bridge of his nose. 

* * *

For some reason, when he walks into the kitchen and sees Sam making a sandwich, he instantly backs out the door. He stops himself, of course, from fleeing back to his room, he's not  _ that  _ bad. But still. It's something. 

He's not sure what, though. It's weird, he's been antsy around Sam lately. Like walking on eggshells until eventually it was easier to just avoid him alone all together. Which isn't right. They're partners, or they're supposed to be.

Steve takes a breath and puts one foot in front of the other and walks in. Sam has headphones in, nodding his head along to some sort of music. Steve takes a seat at the counter, and Sam wordlessly gets another plate and two more slices of bread and pushes them towards Steve along with his platter of condiments. 

It's easy like that, or at least it should be.

“Sup,” says Sam, taking off his headphones finally. “Want a drink too? I'm making coffee.”

Steve shakes his head, and begins assembling his sandwich quickly. Truthfully, he could probably do with a cup too, but he wouldn't want to be a hassle or anything. You know?

“You in a rush or something?” Sam remarks all casual, looking at him arms folded and leaning back against the opposite counter. Steve has a plate of his sloppily made sandwich in his hand, ready to go.

“Well, you know me,” he makes out, weak sounding even to himself. “Always got stuff to do.”

Sam raises his eyebrows, the pause stretching between them.

“Fair.”

Steve nods, and begins to back away again. Sam holds his gaze, scrutinizingly. He's probably been spending too much time with Natasha. 

“You up for dinner tonight? I know a fantastic Portuguese place close by. The owner owes me one,” says Sam suddenly, before Steve is out the door.

Steve halts. Panic welling up his throat for some reason. 

“I don't know, Sam. I’m—” 

“Busy,” Sam finishes, monotone. “I got it.”

Sam slips his headphones back over his ears, goes back to his coffee and his sandwich. Steve swallows and places one foot in front of the other, and retreats back to his room.

* * *

Because Sam isn't usually the one to initiate these kinds of things, everyone is surprised when Sam calls a team meeting. As a result, everyone arrives at the game room early. 

“Is it the Accords?” Wanda asks immediately upon entering the room.

Sam shakes his head, and gives the room another sweep. He's standing instead of sitting next to him and Nat. Which feels wrong. 

“It's nothing like that. It's just— look, I know this isn't exactly the right time for any of this…” he trails off. His whole body screams tension and discomfort. 

“Just spit it out, Sam,” says Natasha, frowning, although Steve has no doubt she already knows, or at least  _ suspects  _ what this is about.

Sam inhales deeply. “Okay, so I know it's not great timing, but I'm moving back to my apartment, the New York one, obviously. I sold the DC one ages ago, of course. It's not far from here, you guys all know that, I just… some things have cropped up.”

“What things?” Wanda says, eyes wide, tense all over again. 

“Can’t be more important than this,” Tony adds, sitting up straight for once. “Hate to break it to you, Wilson, but we’re kind of your number one priority right now.”

Sam sighs and rubs his face with one hand. “Look, it's nothing to do with you guys, it's just. Something cropped up yesterday which means I have to move back home. I'll still be coming here every day or so — whenever you need me. I'm not going to go into it, Okay?”

“We need you here  _ now _ , Sam,” says Wanda. “You know we have to stick together.” And her voice is even but they can all hear the carefully controlled hysteria of it because Sam's leaving. Someone is leaving  _ again.  _

And it's  _ Sam,  _ of all people.

Sam's eyes soften, and he sits down again. 

“Look, it's only temporary. Promise. A few months, max.”

Natasha shakes her head, her stare hard and disapproving. “Not good enough, Sam,” she says. “Wanda's right. Can’t whatever it is wait? At least until the Accords blow over? We need you  _ now _ .”

Steve's not saying anything, and it feels like he should. Because where the hell's this coming from? Why’s Steve only finding out about this now when they're supposed to be  _ partners _ ? And he's not feeling the panic sinking in, not yet, just the prelude.  _ Denial _ , or something. Because even when he’d been running wild, chasing after Bucky, he’d had Sam with him. 

Sam's gaze flickers to Steve's own, just briefly, before they return to Nat's. 

“No, you don't,” says Sam.

Apparently, that's it. Nothing to debate. No nothing. It's final and it’s 5:30, they haven't even eaten yet, the sun is just beginning to set, and he's packing his bags and calling a cab  _ tonight. _

It's not a big deal, Sam is saying. He’ll be around tomorrow and the day after. He's just going back to  _ his own place _ at the end of the day. 

(Like this,  _ here,  _ isn't  _ his own place _ .)

It's probably not intentional, but everyone else leaves the room before either of them do; for some reason, they’re the only ones left. Steve has him cornered and yet he doesn't really want to say anything. What is there left to say?

He can't even say  _ don't go _ because where's his right? Sam's already decided.

After all, it is not a big deal, apparently. 

But Sam is still here, clearly waiting, so Steve swallows down the cold air in his throat.

“Why didn't you say anything to me before?” is what comes out. And Steve can't even look at him and yet he can't  _ stop _ looking at him.

Sam shrugs, not meeting his eyes until he does and they're so... _ tired.  _ “When would I have been able to, Steve? Unless you wanted a text or something.”

By 7:30, Sam has finished packing. He hugs Wanda and Rhodey and offers Tony a nod, meets Nat's fixed stare head on until she nods and hugs him too, and he says he'll text her, waves to Vision.

“Bye Steve,” says Sam, still looking just as tired as before. “See you tomorrow.”


	9. It's not a miracle we needed

**YOU: Hey Sam! How are you? How's the apartment?**

**SAM 🦅: it's fine.**

**YOU: Need a hand w anything? I can come round w takeout if you want?**

**SAM 🦅: No thanks, I'm good. See you tomorrow.**

**YOU: alright, see ya!**

* * *

"I screwed up," Steve begins, the next time he sees Angie.

Angie sighs and rubs her temples. "Well, Golly, Steve, I'm not your damn shrink."

Steve falls into the armchair in Angie's room heavily, sinking back into the worn down cushions. They're made with the kind of teal, floral fabric you might associate with a place like this. He places three boxes of extra cheese pepperoni pizza between them, and opens the first. They're mostly for him, of course.

"I know that," he says, taking a slice and Angie does the same. "But most all the advice you've given so far has been sound."

Angie snorts, and then wrinkles her nose as she watches him squeeze a significant amount of mayonnaise on his slice. What? It's  _good_. At least that's what Steve thinks.

She looks away pointedly.

(A lot of people disagree with Steve's food opinions, to be fair.)

"Well, that's because — when you speak vaguely, people think you're intellectual, for some reason. It's what politicians do."

"I guess."

She lets out a rather deliberate sigh. Taps at her Starkpad for a few minutes. Finishes her slice of pizza surprisingly quickly for a ninety-four year old (though, not as surprising considering it's Angie.)

A strange sort of  _yowl_  sounds from the device and Angie turns the volume up, and turns the screen towards him. It takes a few seconds for Steve to properly process what he's watching.

It's on that YouTube thing, on the internet, one of those videos. Under the video box is a title which just says, " _cat videos which give me life in this bitch of a world_ " and the clip playing shows a green, leafy area, and a tiny grey stray, hissing at the man behind the camera. And then there's one of a rather regal looking black cat, jumping into soft snow, and going all the way through. It's very cute, and really quite funny.

Steve stifles a laugh.

"Feel any better?" says Angie, already going on to click another video — " _vines which genuinely cured my depression_."

"Yeah," he replies, allowing a smile to slip through. "Thanks, Angie."

She shrugs. "How'd you mess up?"

"I thought you  _weren't_ my therapist."

"I'm not," she replies, reaching for another slice and catching the cheese before it drips. "I'm your  _friend_ , Rogers. Why else would ya be here getting crumbs and mozzarella all over my carpet?"

And she's right, just like Sam was right, just like Bucky was right. It's the sort of thing that might have made folks scoff back in the day, and some now too, but it's what friends are for. And, maybe Angie's hit the nail too much on the head. Because, Steve hasn't been the greatest partner, let alone friend.

"I—" Steve begins, and swallows. "You're gonna hate it."

"Maybe, but it isn't helping anyone if you don't say."

"I didn't have— I didn't wanna have his back. It was… it was after we had that conversation about Sam and Peggy, and me taking a holiday, and all. I guess that's when it started. And then I woke up one night with Sam's heart beating in my ears and he couldn't— it was like shellshock, or something, you know? He couldn't  _breathe_. I don't — I don't even know if I should be telling this stuff, but the point is, I held him for a bit, you know. But after, it's like I let him fall. I couldn't look at him after without thinking of him like that."

"And you couldn't,  _can't_ , deal with that," Angie finishes, an unreadable expression settled on her face.

"Well... yeah."

It's really exactly how it sounds, and Steve didn't even realise he was being such an asshole until now and now Sam has moved out and every time they're left alone  _Sam_ walks out. And he's probably right to.

Steve had said he was  _busy,_  and Sam had said it like an accusation. And he really had been busy, but weren't they all? Wasn't Sam, with all his nieces and nephews and part-time work at the VA on top of his Avenger work, just as busy if not more so? And yet, Sam had always found time for Steve. Had always dealt with all of Steve's shit. Had chased Bucky around the globe with him.

He took his wings off one time, and what did Steve do?

Sam had needed him this time, and what did Steve do? He hadn't even been asking for a therapist, he'd been asking for Steve to be a friend, and what did Steve do? Steve hadn't even given him the chance to ask.

"You fucked up this time, Steve. Big time," says Angie, because even though he already knows that, and she knows he knows it, he needs to hear someone say it. It weirdly reminds him of those school detention videos he did a few months back.

"Yeah, I did."

A loud noise comes from the video playing on Angie's Starkpad. And then, suddenly, all Steve can hear from it is, " _what the fuck, Richard."_  Angie taps the screen, pausing it. She heaps another three slices of pizza onto her plate, and Steve almost feels like he should try to stop her except he knows better.

"So, you fucked up," Angie says again, and pushes the rest of the pizza towards him and his other pizzas. "Now get outta here and do something about it."

* * *

**YOU: Hey Sam. I need to talk to you, think I can come over this afternoon?**

**Sam 🦅: I'll be at the compound til 5:30 so there's no need. Why do you want to talk?**

**YOU: That's completely fine!**

**YOU: It's just that**

**YOU: Look Sam, I'm so sorry. I know I screwed up. I was being a right ass. I should have been there for you when you were having trouble sleeping and everything. I was busy but so were you. I should have made time for you and been there instead of pulling away. I'm so sorry, Sam.**

**YOU: Would you be up for pizza tonight? Or tomorrow night? You could stay one night at the compound, it's not like you don't still have your room, or I could come to yours?**

**YOU: Doesn't have to be pizza.**

**Sam 🦅: Steve, it's ok. I'm not mad at you anymore.**

**Sam 🦅: I can't do pizza this week. Busy.**

**Sam 🦅: I feel like we could probably just do with a break from each other's company tbh.**

**YOU: Ha ha, of course. Don't even worry about it! 10 months travelling around the globe for a brainwashed pow in the worst places can do that to people, it's fine! You're probably right, anyway**   **😊**

**Sam 🦅: Cool. See you around.**

**YOU:**   **😊👍**

* * *

They're not the only heroes, of course. And although most would call the others more  _vigilantes_ , in reality there's not really much distinction between them other than scale and the whole secret identity thing. Anyway, there are loads, and they'll have to be signing the Accords, too. There's no clause for identity protection. People like  _The Devil of Hell's Kitchen,_ Spider-man who's based down in Queens with his scrappy suit,  _Quake_ and her ragtag group who never stay in the same state for a week. And that's just here in the US. The Accords will affect  _everyone._

Instead of three weeks, Ross tells them three months. One month for them to decide on what they want, gather voices from others since apparently the Avengers are the voice of vigilantes and enhanced  _everywhere_ now, and two months for back and forth negotiations.

It's then, of course, that Maria Hill comes back from her mysterious unpaid leave — she technically still works for them, nobody fired her, even if no one's seen her in at least six months — with Nick Fury in tow. She's still on the system, because honesty upgrading their personal systems is the least of their priorities, so she really just walks in. Not that Steve thinks she wouldn't have been able to just as easily. Still, the fact that the pair of them are just sitting in the game room playing Tetris on their phones when the team walk in is… well it's something, that's for sure.

"Hill, Fury," begins Steve, trying to keep his face neutral. He's never quite sure how to react to these two. They're like Nat that way, only Steve isn't at the point where he can call them things like Nat, or 'Tasha.

Both of them look up. "What's up, guys?" greets Hill, setting down her phone, smiling pleasantly like all of this is perfectly normal. To them it might be, because who knows what classifies as normal with those two.

"You're fired, by the way," says Tony.

Hill shrugs. "Fair enough."

"I'm guessing you're both here about the Accords," he cuts in, feeling tired already.

"'Course we are, Rogers," speaks Fury for the first time. He's wearing his shades again, instead of his eyepatch — really, he doesn't think it makes the man any more inconspicuous, but each to their own, he supposes. "Heard you were putting together a case. Thought we might provide you with some help."

"Well, we don't exactly have an excess of resources so we'll take whatever we can get. But first, what do you think our thoughts are? What kind of accords do you want, Director? I'm interested to know," says Rhodey, pulling up holograms already. It's a bit of a mess, to put it honestly. And Steve never thought he would refer to something like holograms as messy, but they are. There are lists suspended everywhere in the air, everyone's scribbled notes scanned and put up too, news reports, letters from the president, highlighted clauses of the Accords. Anything that seems relevant, and that's only a fraction of it.

Hill lets out a whistle, taking it in, at the same time Fury says, "Well, first of all, I'm not the Director of SHIELD, anymore. And as for the other part, I haven't decided yet. But I'm pretty sure you guys are the good guys, so I'm helping you."

"And I'm pretty sure Ross and the whole World Security Council hate you," Hill adds helpfully. "And you're still legally dead."

"Cheers to that, Maria."

There's a lot to talk about — then again, there always is these days — a lot of "who's that" and "what do they do?" Because the whole thing with the enhanced or individuals like them (because  _enhanced_ is perhaps not the best wording since not all of them are) is that they are  _individuals._ It's hard to categorise them when you have someone like Stark, an individual in his own way, with his own power but is miles away from Vision, whose status as a person with autonomy hasn't even been dealt with yet. It's hard to create guidelines for them, without acting as if they are all even remotely the same, without making them too vague or too restraining, when the whole point of them is that they  _aren't_ the same. Other than that they want to do good.

After all, he got the pitch from Erskine, and Fury: fight the battles  _they_  can't. Which means it's their  _job_  to be individual.

Four hours later, the holograms are looking a lot messier, somehow. And it's slow work, but it's important work, and they gotta do it right. And anyway, they're one step further.

* * *

He doesn't mean to eavesdrop, but he finds himself on the floor Nat and Wanda share to pick something up from Natasha, and he sees Sam. Wanda is sitting quietly in her room, he presumes; Sam knocks twice and waits five seconds before he hears a tentative "come in."

She's watching the report on Lagos again. Over a month old, now. People aren't really talking about it anymore, there are fresh new tragedies everyday to care about, everywhere. That's the bitter reality of it. But it's playing on her phone, in her still hands, her knees drawn up to her chest. The footage is shaky, zooming in to the destroyed half of the building, all the smoke and fire, and then panning out again until the whole devastation of it is visible. And then the camera shifts to Steve, his face half hidden by the cowl, and then to Wanda, all traces of red gone, but the rings on her fingers catching on the firelight, her face half covered by her hands.

"Alright, enough," Sam decides, gently taking the phone from her hands and locking it.

The room is so still it feels like it's holding its breath.

"Wanda, talk to me."

She lets out a short, sharp laugh and shakes her head. "I do not even know where to begin."

"C'mon, watching this over and over isn't helping anyone."

"Isn't it?" she says, looking down at her hands, studying them.

Sam sighs. "You know, at some point it becomes less 'self-reflection' and more self-hate." and his tone is carefully light, but his expression is serious, holding her gaze.

"Heavy words."

"I guess so. C'mon, Wanda. Let it out. Talk."

Wanda squeezes her eyes shut briefly, before settling on just looking away. At a little spot on her wall. "What if they are right, Sam? Ross, everyone…" She takes a breath. "I— I am dangerous, Sam. What if I cannot control myself, what if I am wrong one day and I hurt more people? I was designed to be a  _weapon,_ Sam. How can I live with that, when there are so many people? I have this power and people might get hurt because of it."

The words flow more easily than Steve would have expected. They've talked about this before. Her questions come out monotone, though, as if she's been saying them for a long time, now, on repeat. She's still sitting so still.

Sam goes to sit on her carpet, beside her bed, leaning against the frame. Wanda peers down at him, waiting for him to speak.

"Okay, let's work this out," Sam says, crossing his legs. He has a plastic carrier bag with him from Walgreens, and he reaches into it and pulls out a pack of those Pocky sticks everyone is obsessed with these days. Strawberry flavour. "Eat this, though. Don't think I don't know you well enough to know you skipped breakfast."

"Thanks, Sam."

Steve should probably get going. He shouldn't be privy to this sort of conversation. It's nothing to do with him. And yet he can't move, can't make himself walk towards the elevator or close Natasha's door or breathe too loudly, in case they hear him and stop.

"Okay," Sam begins again, "So you're dangerous. Let's start with that. Have you hurt people? Yes, you have. We all have. Doesn't mean it's okay though, right?"

"Right," says Wanda. "And what I am...They can't defend themselves from that. They were innocent. The people in Lagos, or Johannesburg when I made Dr. Banner…"

Her breath hitches, and she has to stop. She takes three slow breaths.

"Wanda — you're not a  _what._ It might sound cheesy as shit, but who you are is not what you people in Lagos, yeah, that was bad. It was terrible, I'm not gonna diminish that. But you wanna know how many people would have died if you hadn't acted as quickly as you did? There were over three hundred people at that market place, and I'm not saying fifteen makes it any better — it doesn't, it's still horrible — but the point is, you saved so many people. You  _are_ dangerous, you are powerful, but you wanted to save people."

"So just because my intentions were good, I'm innocent?" Wanda responds dully.

"No — look, it sounds like a cop-out, but it's complicated. It's so complicated. And the people in Johannesburg… there isn't much that can justify that. It was wrong, but you are better now. You're trying to help."

"That doesn't mean I'm not still guilty. It doesn't mean I can't still hurt people, Sam."

"I know, but look at it this way. Everyone is capable of hurting others —"

"It's different."

"Well, yeah, of course it's different. I'm not gonna pretend I understand completely what you're going through, when I can take my wings off at the end of the day. But there are so many people with power — and without any of your or even Steve's fancy super powers — who are capable of hurting millions. Look at Ross! HYDRA! People like you or Steve or Thor… you're different because you're new. It's why we have to get this right. Because the Accords Ross and the rest of those politicians wanted us to sign? They made it out of fear. And they fear you guys 'cause they can't control you. And yeah, we do need to have rules, we need guidelines — but who controls them? And if we had signed that right away, they could've done anything to us. You're dangerous, Wanda, but you're also a person. That's way more important than any of your powers.

"The job we do… it's hard. And it sounds bad, but people getting hurt — it's an inevitability. Innocents, bad guys, whatever. It's part of the job description. And it doesn't make it any less bad, but it's a choice we have to make, if we want to fight for what we believe in. If we want to go out there and save people. And it's a choice we have to keep making again and again, every time we go out there."

"Sounds hard."

"That's 'cause it is. If it was easy, anyone would do it."

* * *

"So, I spoke to Sam," begins Natasha, and doesn't elaborate any further, which means Steve is going to have to work for this.

They're at an iHOP for a late night meal, just the two of them. It's busy enough that there's a nice, chatty sort of atmosphere around the place, but also not busy enough that they have to wait to be seated.

"I know I messed up, okay?" Steve sighs, allowing himself to bury his face in his hands. Since when was the Black Widow his counsellor?

"Yep," she agrees. "And nope, you're not getting out of it that easily."

They're at one of the booths near the window, which is rare for them, since enemies and snipers are things which exist. But they felt like sitting here, so sue them. Besides, a bullet wound wouldn't kill him, he thinks, and Natasha agreed to sit there, and he's pretty sure there's no one he'd trust to do a risk assessment more than her. There's the scent of sweet, buttery pancakes and waffles and French toast; greasy, salty fried bacon and burgers and fries; an almost sickly sweet combination of thick syrup and honey, melted chocolate and caramel. It's a richer New York than he's used to — even though they're hardly in Brooklyn any more. Even though he's been out of the ice for what seems like forever now.

"Look, okay. I've been try'na talk to him. He keeps avoiding—"

Natasha shoots him a withering look, eyes sharp and cutting. "I wonder why."

A waitress arrives with their order and sets the food down. Steve's got two orders of what he calls the protein plate: eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns, small stack. Nat has the white chocolate raspberry pancakes, because it's a little known fact that the Black Widow has a terrible sweet tooth.

He has two orders, both because he's a  _super soldier_ and because he knows Nat likes to steal things off people's plates.

"Look," he says once Natasha has finished drizzling even more chocolate onto her pancakes and is munching on one of his slices of bacon. "I'm sure Sam actually has business that means he needs to move out. Probably."

And she gives him another, different look now. "Well, yeah. I've never known Sam Wilson to lie to us. There's something — someone probably — he has to take care of. Why would you doubt that?"

"I thought you were saying...I just…I don't know. He hasn't told me anything about it."

"Yeah, and? The  _point I'm trying to make here_  isn't that Sam is lying, that we shouldn't trust  _him_. It's that he hasn't told us. He doesn't  _trust us._ And can you blame him?"

It's just like Nat, he thinks, to go straight for the kill. Right down to the bottom of it — where it hurts most. And he gets it. Most of them would deny it but the Avengers are their home right now. Other than leaching off Clint, Sam, or Rhodey, the Avengers are the only family most of them have.

They need to stick together.  _Staying together is more important than how_ , was what Nat said. And he gets it. Really.

"I'm trying," he says, and picks at his food. "I'll fix this, I promise."

"You'd better."

He needs to win Sam back.

* * *

Steve allows the phone to ring twice before he picks up.

"Hello?"

" _Heya, Steve."_

"Oh, Angie. Hey."

" _Well, Geez. You don't gotta sound so damned disappointed. I won't call again if that's how you feel about it."_

"Oh, no — Angie of course not. It was just, I thought you might be, uh..."

" _Right. Your lover boy. Got it. And relax, Rogers. At ease and all that jazz. I was just teasin' ya."_

"Oh. Well, hi."

" _You're really on edge, huh."_

"I mean everyone is, I guess."

" _Yeah, but not like you, I'm thinking."_

"I don't know… What is it you called for?"

" _So I remembered earlier that you got that cute little book, right? With your list of things. And I got some things for you to write down. And, before you ask, no it couldn't wait. I'm a little old lady, remember? Y'never know how reliable my memory is."_

"I thought I was two years older than you, technically."

" _Shaddup, Rogers. You don't get to use that against me. Anyway, you got the book handy?"_

"Give me a second...Okay, go."

" _You got it?"_

"Yep?"

"' _Kay. Right, so the first one is Hamilton. It's a musical. Bloody brilliant, as Peg' might'a said."_

"Hamilton, got it. Isn't the theatre s'posed to be expensive?"

" _Cap, I thought you had the dough, nowadays. 'Sides, you're still friends with a Stark. And they can get you in pretty much anywhere."_

"...Fair."

" _Also, you got High School Musical on there?"_

"Do I even want to know?"

" _Course you do._   _That's gonna be a classic one day. Already is, in my opinion._ "

"Sure."

" _Hey, how's that dilemma of yours going?"_

" Eh…Slow. On both accounts."

" _You just need time. And, here's a bit of good advice, something Ana Jarvis used to say all the time. She said: a good listener can solve any problem."_

"Listening, huh? That's kind of what I need to work on."

" _You'll make it. It's just a skill like anything else. A little bit of practice and you'll be just fine."_


	10. I know you'll take me higher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> O o f t -- in which there are many, many cameos.
> 
> (I watch agents of shield don't laugh at me)

The bartender slides him a drink, giving him a pointed look. "Come on, Cap!" he urges cheerfully. "You're not on the clock are you? It's half past eleven!"

And Steve nods and offers a small smile, acquiescing. Privately, though, he thinks, when is he ever not on the clock?

"You know I can't get drunk, right?" Steve says, even as he takes a sip.

"Bah!" replies the bartender. "Everyone says that. Don't throw it back, though, it's a waste of smooth liquor. Gotta savour it."

"I don't think I know enough to tell," he chuckles, sort of self deprecating. Because the truth is, he's never had the pleasure of really experiencing alcohol — save that one time with Thor's Asgardian stuff — he was always too ill before, and now it's the opposite.

The bartender throws him an odd look; he supposes it's not the sort of establishment where one doesn't know his tequila from his vodka aside from which is best to clean a wound or start a fire. It's the sort of bar where it can at least be called  _an establishment_ , and it's got drunk folks which are middle aged, and less college age folks or high school kids sneakin' in.

"Not drunk, my ass," mutters the bartender, quirking his lip.

The reason why Steve is at this very fine establishment — okay, it's hardly the  _Stork Club,_  but it's decent — on a Wednesday evening is for work purposes. So he really  _is_ on the clock, even if he doesn't exactly work the regular nine-to-five. They'd only agreed to meet with him,  _Captain America_ , or Sam for the first communication. They say one of them's met Sam before. After that —  _well_ , they said they'd  _have to see_.

Sam is busy, though, so it's just him. He's really not sure exactly what it is about him which inspires trust, the clear blues, maybe. He hopes they aren't too disappointed.

In the background, they're playing what is apparently old-timey music. Some sort of electro-funk blues, or something. The syncopation and the melody sounds vaguely familiar, sort of reminiscent of what really is old-timey for him. But it's different in a way, he's not sure how but it's just a slightly evolved style. It's old-timey for  _right now_  but not for him. It's good, though, he won't deny that; it's just too familiar and not familiar enough. It sounds ever so slightly off, too much for comfort.

"Anyone ever told you you look like Captain America?" says a voice from behind him making him tense, which is weird because not many can sneak up on him, save Nat and Clint, and possibly Vision.

Steve swivels on his stool, glass still held loosely in his hand. The woman before him has sharp features, quick eyes, pale skin, clean-cut brown hair, and is wearing a smart white pantsuit. She looks perfectly at home in the setting.

Steve does a quick scan of the rest of the bar.

"Only on Halloween," he replies and takes a breath before guessing, "Hope Van Dyne?"

She nods. "We've got a table near the back," she says and turns to walk away coolly, presumably to their table.

And, Steve tries not to be vain most of the time, but he's pretty sure if  _he_  met Captain America he'd be freaking out a little more. Still, he grabs his jacket and bag, and replaces his alcoholic beverage with water, and walks after her.

He recognises, vaguely, Dr. Hank Pym from some of the older SHIELD files and he's pretty sure he's seen the man in one or two of Angie's old photos. The other man, Scott Lang, presumably, he feels like they've met before — like he used to work at his local Starbucks or something. Probably the or something. The reactions he receives from either men are contrasting to say the least.

Dr. Pym regards him so coolly that, had he not just met his daughter, and if he wasn't friends with Natasha Romanov, he might'a flinched. Like he's scrutinizing every part of him. Steve stands himself up a little straighter and he's not even sure it's the right move.

"Dr. Pym," say Steve, holding out his hand to shake.

"Steve Rogers."

And then —

" _Captain America!"_ says Scott Lang, jumping out of his seat and taking Steve's hand and shaking it vigorously. " _Meet to please you!"_

Steve can't help but let out a chuckle. As nervous — or starstruck — as the guy is, his fumble makes this whole meeting feel more human, somehow.

"Scott Lang," he says, allowing himself a slight smile now. "Pleased to meet you. Thank you all for agreeing to this."

"Not like there were any better options," agrees Dr. Pym, unfazed.

He briefly wonders how this guy got so well acquainted with someone like Lang who seems so different. The most they have on the connection is that Lang broke into Pym's house sometime last year and then broke out of his holding cell — and people still don't know how — and within the month there was an explosion at a PymTech showcase, and their new director — Pym's old protegee — went missing. It's a sort of confusing circle of events, to say the least.

"Hank, don't be rude!" complains Lang, indignant.

"I'm not being rude."

"No," says Van Dyne shaking her head, a small but amused smirk playing on her lips. "I'm pretty sure that was kind of rude."

"Not any less rude than you're being," Dr. Pym shoots back at his daughter, scowling.

"Where did you think I got it from?"

"And this is why he sent you to boarding school."

"Shut up, Scott," says Van Dyne.

"Yeah, shut up, Scott."

The back and forth exchange happens so easily, carefree in a way he's sure not even the Avengers have, even after almost four years — and holy crap it's really been  _four years._  It makes his chest ache a little. He misses his Howling Commandos. Misses Peggy and Colonel Phillips. He misses his Bucky. And it's only been a few weeks but he misses Sam.

And even though he has to get on with all this Accords business, and he has a schedule, he doesn't want to stop them, because as heavy as the ache is, the lightness of their conversation, the ease, feels infectious. Like breathing second-hand.

Still, he has a job to do.

He clears his throat, both for their benefit and his own. "Right, so here're the Accords as they were originally proposed. And here're the amendments we've been thinking of making. And there's also some other angles we're trying to consider, but we're not quite sure how to handle them," he begins, going for a more business-like tone, and slides the thick folder of organized mess across the table. "We're trying to open up the conversation for anyone in our sort of business, not just from the US too. Although, I'm thinking it's gonna be different for different places...Let us know what you think?"

"Oh, we will."

* * *

Fury isn't with staying with them anymore. Steve has a theory that the man probably isn't in the habit of staying anywhere for longer than three days. He's left Maria with them, though. And Maria says he's "called in a favour. Should be arriving sometime today."

Tony throws his hands up, exasperated. "Okay, but it's like I don't even get a say about who comes in here now. Like, I built this place!"

"Yeah," says Rhodey. "You really don't."

"Never did," adds Wanda, who's painting her nails in a manner entirely too casually for a meeting of its subject. But then again, they are in the game room.

Natasha rolls her eyes at their antics a little fondly. "So what's the favor Fury's called in — or who," she amends, turning the room back on track to the matter at hand.

For all the months Hill has been away, she looks perfectly at home in the room, sipping on a large tumbler of black coffee, lounging next to Rhodey on the sofa. It's almost like she never left at all. And, he supposes, it  _is_ almost like she never left at all. Even when she'd been getting a paycheck from Tony, it wasn't like any of them had made assumptions that she was working purely for them. No, Maria, though they haven't been able to keep hold of her, they can understand. She's like them, in a way. Constantly moving but loyal to a few.

It's why they both don't trust her, and why they do. She's not loyal to them, but they know where her loyalties are, and even though Nick Fury isn't the most trustworthy of people, for the Avengers at least,or the most predictable, they trust that they're both good people.

So when he says it's like she almost never left at all, he means that there's very little difference to be made when someone you do not trust returns after their meeting your expectations of them. It's not necessarily a bad thing at all, it's just what it is. There's but a thread of trust between them, and he supposes all parties accept it and have intended to make the most of it.

Still, Hill checks her phone briefly, finishes the rest of her coffee, and sits up with a careful smirk on her face that's equal parts amused and watchful.

"SHIELD," she tells them. "The  _new SHIELD_."

* * *

The  _new SHIELD_  arrives with more chaos but a lot more covertly than the old SHIELD did. Though, Steve thinks that might have to do with how few of them there are left. Briefly, he wonders if Peggy ever knew.

Wonders if she realised that the meaning of what she built — what she wanted to build, not what was cultivated within it — still mattered, matters, to some people. These few folks who saw the SHIELD they believed in torn down, and fought blood and limb to continue what it should have meant to the world.

(Angie cries when he tells her. And laughs. And says "of course, of course. 'Course they wouldn't just die," voice all choked up and light and amazed all at once. "Not when she'd worked so hard to build it. Not when she damn'd near killed herself for it. She must've known. She can't have gone without knowing.")

The SHIELD party which comes to meet them — and what they all assume to be the only SHIELD party of such available, though, they have enough tact not to say so — is considerably small. They consist of one Daisy Johnson, who most of them recognise to be the ever-elusive 'Quake' who appears on the news from time to time. Some other members of her 'Secret Warriors' team, Elena Rodriguez, who is probably the fastest person alive (which still stings a little, especially with Wanda in the room,) and Joey Gutierrez, who can manipulate metals. Another member of their team, Lincoln, is otherwise occupied, apparently, and Johnson takes visible satisfaction at telling them "it's classified," even though they aren't technically a registered government agency anymore. Then there's a trio of scientists, the duo Fitzsimmons and the mechanic Mack, all of whom Tony and Rhodey immediately gravitate towards. They're a little familiar too — which is not wholly surprising, since he must have seen them around SHIELD before it all went to hell.

The last member of their party is familiar to pretty much all of them — all the original Avengers, anyway.

"Son of a bitch," says Tony, jaw-slacked. "You goddamned son of a bitch."

"Hey, Mr. Stark," replies Agent Coulson. "You've been keeping well."

"You could've told me you were coming, Phil," says Natasha, folding her arms, though she looks mostly to be taking all of this in stride. "I had to find out from Maria."

"Sorry, Romanoff. I was enjoying the prospect of surprising you guys, though. The thought was just too fun to pass up."

"Wait," splutters Tony, "You knew? We mourned for you, Agent!"

"I was well above Level Seven clearance, so of course I knew. It's not like they could have kept it from me, anyway," Natasha responds, looking altogether too dismissive of the subject.

"I'm pretty sure you only learned my name after I died, Stark," Coulson adds with a shrug. "And anyway, it's  _Director_ now."

Steve finds himself rubbing his eyes tiredly in a manner that's all too familiar to him nowadays. "Nothing shocks me anymore in this century," he says finally. "I'm glad to see you, Director Coulson."

Director Phil Coulson lets out another shrug, "Thanks, Cap," and then adds slyly, "I hear you still have those trading cards of mine. Did you ever sign them? I've heard white ink shows up pretty well over red stains."

"Death has somewhat evolved D.C.'s sense of humour," Agent Johnson cuts in, not looking even the slightest bit apologetic.

"How's May?" asks Natasha, looking behind their whole entourage to see if there's anymore of them joining. "Tell her she should come next time."

"Holding down the fort, and she will. Tell Clint he should come into town to visit. We're only gonna be staying for a few days."

So there's seven of them, and whilst the number of visiting agents is equal to the number of Avengers present, there's the slight unspoken thing that there should be  _more._  SHIELD who used to arrive to the scene with thirty-odd agents in suits, only five of whom would speak — or would arrive and you wouldn't know of their presence at all. Not this new SHIELD who have deemed the matter important enough to spare seven out of less than twenty-five agents, or decided to announce their entrance via hacking into their security systems and texting Hill that it was entirely a show of goodwill and familiarity.

"Call it ethical hacking," Agent Johnson says, holding up a peace sign.

There's a lot to be sorted out with SHIELD. The first is that they can't technically have relations with them when they aren't a legitimized organization, yet. There's the whole ATCU, General Talbot, Secretary Ross, the President etc. stuff which needs to be worked out. A lot of paperwork to be done. They're all very very glad they have Hill with them, because she's the only one who really knows how this all works without them all being screwed over.

"Thanks for inviting me to the party," Clint says, when he arrives on the Thursday finally.

"You took your time," Coulson replies, quirking a brow. "How's Laura? How're the goats? Hey, is it weird that you're retired and I'm not?"

"Man, shut up. Non-commercial farming is a real job. I'm not old. Fuck you."

The Director shrugs and raises his hands. "You said it, not me."

"Hey," Agent Fitz says, after a brief moment of silence, "Did you know I designed one of your arrows?"

"Oh yeah? Which one?"

"Exploding one. And, me and Simmons developed the ICER formula which was worked into the arrows. I mean, it was mostly Simmons, but still."

"Oh? You mean the  _night-night_ arrows?"

" _ICER,_ " insists Agent Simmons, who looks both a little chuffed and a little put out.

They're an odd bunch, the SHIELD crew. Natasha takes to Agent Rodriguez quickly, who of course knows how to keep up. Wanda...Wanda mostly stays out of their way as much as she can. It's not them individually, he knows, but it's all just a bit much. He sees her talking with Agents Simmons and Johnson a few times, though. Agent Gutierrez, who seemed a little unsure at first like his more science-y friends, has his attention stolen by Tony. Steve talks to Agent Mackenzie a few times who mostly sticks with Coulson, unless he's also being stolen to Tony's workshop. He's a good man.

He hardly sees Sam though, of course. He knows Sam is there, knows he's talking to people and doing a lot and everyone seems to like him. It's just that  _he_ hardly sees Sam.

But anyway, by the end of the week, the whole compound seems more than a little overrun, and there are people coming in and out — though, mostly in their more public building, which is where Ross and the other dignitaries meet them, there's no way everyone would fit in the game room, plus he wouldn't want them there. On the whole though, as stressful and tiring and mentally taxing all this is, he knows it'll be worth it — if it ever ends that is. And Coulson's team — part of it at least — are fun, if a bit chaotic. He gets the feeling they've been through a lot, not just since the HYDRA-SHIELD shitshow. But they're holding together, mostly.

"It's good work you guys are doing," Steve tells Coulson, one evening. "With SHIELD, the work with the Inhumans, HYDRA, everything… that you're still going on, continuing —"

_That you're still continuing her legacy. That you're not letting her life and work go to vain._

It's hard to convey how much all of this means, not just to him. Undoubtedly however much it means to him, it'll probably mean about ten times more to them. They're the ones that went down on their knees and scraped their hands on debris to build it back up, after all. And he's the one that burnt it down.

Coulson lets out a smile, a little worn, but content. "I know," he says.

* * *

"Hey, Angie," says Steve. He's brought cupcakes again. It's not a meal time, so it's the right time for cupcakes.

"Hey. I thought you'd be busier this week?"

"I could spare a moment."

"And you decided to spare it on me?" she says dubiously, though she's already opening the box with the cupcakes and scrutinizingly picking out her first one.

"What's that s'posed to mean?"

"Nuthin'" she shrugs. "How's that Sam Wilson?"

"I dunno yet. I've hardly had the chance to speak with him. And — okay, I know, I know, ironic right? But I don't know... He's keeping something from me."

"It's harder to get trust after you've already lost it once," she says, sighing. She pats the seat next to her so Steve sits, and it feels like everything is on his shoulders all at once.

"I just wish it would go back to before," he admits quietly, after his second cupcake.

"Before, when you had the ability to communicate, or before when you didn't know he isn't invulnerable?"

"I...I don't know."

"Besides," she adds, and swipes the last cupcake — funfetti. "Even if he is keeping something from you — other than himself, obviously, cos that worked out so well the last time he opened up — everyone has secrets, Steve. It's what I learned from Peg, I s'pose. Everyone has secrets. Some of them happen to do with the country, some of them have to do with the world and, hell— " and she gives him a meaningful look, " — some of them have to do with the whole universe. But some of them… Some secrets are just their own. And sometimes, we gotta respect that."

* * *

"We've been at this for way too long. I'm getting McDonald's," Sam says, stretching and rubbing his eyes, because one can only look at holographic visuals for so long. "Anyone want anything?"

"I'll come with you!" Steve cuts in quickly, standing up already. "I can help carry."

Sam gives him an odd look, but it's not as intense as the look Nat sends him, so Steve stands his ground. Eventually, his partner shrugs.

"Sure. Might as well put those muscles to some use."

Since there are McDonald's everywhere in the world — seriously, like more than there are of HYDRA, it seems — it only takes Sam and he about twenty minutes to walk to one from their 'remote Avenger's facility.' Sam's got everyone's orders on his phone, Steve is paying (although, technically it's kind of all coming from Tony). The sun is pretty low in the sky, and it's a clear sort of day, hot but with a cool enough breeze to make it easy — or, well, what should be easy. The sky has that stunning aqua and orange two-tone which always makes Steve itch for his paints in order to capture it in some more tangible way.

But Sam doesn't speak a word to him as soon as they leave the rest of the team. He busies himself on his phone for a while, scrolling aimlessly on social media or something as they begin to walk, and ignores Steve when he purposefully clears his throat.

It's…kinda unbearable. Not the easy silences they had on the roads chasing after Bucky, all those months back, or flying home from missions. A very, very, unbearable silence. There's not really many other words he can describe it with.

Sam doesn't even look at him, and after the first five minutes, it makes it feel impossible for Steve to even glance at him.

When they arrive at McDonald's there's very little fanfare. The New Yorkers are quite well accustomed to their resident Avengers, now. Even Captain America. And it's a Monday evening, anyone who would care is much too tired to pay any attention. Sam orders on the self-order screens, speaks once to Steve to ask if they should get anything else, and Steve pays. They wait in silence.

Steve speaks as soon as they leave, happy meals and etc. to-go in hand, because he's pretty sure if he spends another minute in silence, suspended with this whole…  _thing_ , he'll just about go crazy. He coughs.

"So...how've you been, lately?"

"You've seen me just about every day, Steve. Same as always."

Which is both true and untrue. Because the thing is, it's  _not_. It's not the  _same as always._

"I guess," he settles on. Sam still isn't looking at him. "We just haven't...haven't talked in a bit. You know?"

Sam shrugs. " Well, I've been fine, I guess. You?"

"Been better. But we're talking about you, right now."

Sam turns to face him finally, and the light from the fading sky, hues of soft pink and orange, is doing that thing again where it bounces off the glow of Sam's skin. Sam's expression is a mixture of things which Steve can't quite decipher.

"Why?"

And his voice is quiet. Closed off in a way which used to seem impossible for someone like Sam.

"What?" Steve says dumbly.

"Yeah, why you wanna talk about me?"

"I just—"

"Look, I said I'm not mad at you. Isn't that enough?"

"No, it's not," he says, because suddenly it feels like he won't be able to breathe if he doesn't get this all out. The words come out rushed and too light, though, for how long he's been choking on them. "You're my friend, Sam. Isn't this what friends do? Talk to me, please—"

"Just forget it, Steve," Sam interrupts, resigned, irritated, already walking forward.

"No! Look, I know you say that you forgive me, but I don't! I looked at you different because—"

"Steve. It  _doesn't matter_."

"Yes, it does!" And Sam is still walking a few pages faster than he is, and Steve's pretty sure he's going to go insane if they get back to the compound with this much distance still between them — screw the Accords, screw the team, screw everything! His hand catches Sam's shoulder, holding on, and Sam flinches. "It does  _so_ matter."

Sam is tense under his grip, his muscles stiff.

"Fine," he says. "Fine. Want me to yell at you? Want me to ask you why the hell the time you see me low suddenly you're ghosting me? Suddenly it's like I don't even exist? I wasn't ever asking you to drop everything, but I expected a fucking  _friend_! Instead, it's like I was some sort of all-hours unpaid councillor and suddenly you saw me down and realised maybe I don't have all the answers. I'm sorry if you don't  _forgive yourself_  but maybe you don't get to decide that."

Even though there's still a cool breeze flowing through, the air still feels too warm for this sort of evening. And Sam's face is suddenly so close, enough that Steve can feel his breath on his skin.

"Why does it only matter when you say it does, huh?" Sam says, his eyes intense and hot and unforgiving. "Why do I only matter when you decide? If I'm your friend, if we  _need to talk_ , then what makes right now any different from when  _I_  could've done with a friend?"

"Because I just realised; I'm in love with you."

The words spill almost too easily, maybe because Steve's known for a while now, maybe because it seems like everyone's known for a while now and he's just been too much of a coward to act like it.

"What?"

And Steve is still holding McDonald's in his other arm, that doesn't matter because all that  _does_ matter is making sure Sam knows how he feels because he's been doing a pretty crummy job of it so far. Because what's real and right-now is that Sam is here, and Sam has always, always been there for him, ever since he met him, always been by his side and now he's here and it feels like an age since he last saw him.

He stops for just a second, eyes searching, before he captures Sam's lips with his own, harsh and intense and fiery and messy. Because he has to  _know_.

"I love you," he says again, this time firmly, and it almost feels like when he's gearing up for a fight but this is  _different._

"You  _love me?"_

"Yes, Sam," and he almost laughs because  _of course he does._  "Yes, goddammit, I do."

It takes another second, but Sam pulls him back in.

"You have a fucking shit way of showing it," breathes Sam.

"I know. I know. I'm sorry."

This time, when they kiss, it's softer and sweeter and he can feel it from the ground up and, to Steve, at least, it feels pretty damned perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't get excited folks, we're only halfway


	11. with the black banners raised

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait, this chapter is a little shorter too.

The Vienna International Centre is build mostly out of function rather than aesthetic. Not that it's ugly or run-of-the-mill or anything like that. It's still huge and made of metal, concrete and glass like all things these days seem to be made of, so really it's still quite grand. Today is a pretty sunny day too, there are only a few thin white clouds, though, it's still breezy enough that Steve's honouring everyone and wearing a jacket too.

There are a whole lotta people here who are not Avengers or New-SHIELD, who are in this superhero business. It's a new world. 

“Everyone's got a gimmick nowadays,” is what Sam says which is very true. 

Sam isn't here, though. Not all of them are, mostly because they didn't think it would be the best idea to gather all the Avengers here in one go in a place so public for a broadcast conference, with a whole bunch of other enhanced — depending on how they're defining the word this week. Even if it is the first official conference concerning the Accords. It's just Nat, Tony, Rhodey and himself. Wanda wanted to come, but they decided it maybe wasn't a very good idea for the first one. They need to test out the waters first.

It’s more than just people in masks and  _ super-suits _ (Sam made him watch _ The Incredibles _ a while back, which is starting to feel increasingly more relevant these days.) There are people in suits-with-ties too, the usual stuffy old men, and people representing countries from just about everywhere. There are cameras flashing from news stations and media companies. There is just about more security about than Steve’s ever seen, not even counting the muscle like him and the rest of the heroes, vigilantes, everything. Everyone whose identity is accounted for, some in their masks, some in their civvies, even if you can’t put name to alias. 

Not for the first time, the whole thing seems a bit out of his depth.

**YOU: I wish you were here ://**

**Sam 🦅: u know, u keep saying that and it just makes me more glad i’m at home**

**YOU: fair enough. I miss you though**

**Sam 🦅: I saw you 2 days ago**

**YOU: exactly**

**Sam 🦅: wow**

“Steve, this is Everett Ross,” says Rhodey, appearing out of the masses, all of a sudden. 

“Captain Rogers,” says the man, holding out his hand.

“He’s the better Ross,” adds his teammate. 

“Pleased to meet you,” Steve replies, pocketing his phone and shaking the said hand. “I’m glad to meet someone who redeems the name.”

The man shrugs, a small smiles which betrays he’s more amused than he lets on. “Well, it’s a small compliment, but I’ll take it.”

They make small, mildly uneasy small talk for a few minutes before Steve watches them wander off, disappearing again. There are so many people to speak to here, and the conference hasn’t even started yet. It feels like he needs to act like he’s walking on eggshells, and at the same time he’s trying not to ridicule at the fact there’s canapes being served as though this is one of Stark Industries’ fancy galas, but there had to be some way to feed the crowd.

Steve’s got a speech prepared. They all do, though his is the most extensive — he’s got a way with public speaking, is what the others say, makes it easier to rally people to their side. And it’s hard not to see this as having sides. He's gonna talk a lot about working together, but it's hard because even in this very room where everyone is mingling he can feel the gap between those who punch the bad guys, and those who sign the papers and get to decide, apparently, who the bad guys are.

He catches Natasha's eye, speaking with all the important people, spots Tony who's doing his bit too, Rhodey, and even the flash of Agent Coulson's people, perhaps — though you never know with those guys. 

"You ready for this?" Nat asks, just before everything starts.

He's not of course: he's so woefully unprepared. Even with his speech and all his annotations and Sam's " **good luck"** in his pocket. But he doesn't think anyone here is really prepared for it either, and he wonders briefly if Dr. Erskine ever predicted the world to be like this all those decades ago (almost a century.)

He takes a breath. "Well, I guess I have to be," he replies. "You?"

"About the same."

* * *

 

This is it. The whole world is watching. 

Steve tries not to look around too much, at all the faces and masks and camera lights. And he tries his best to look open and focused and welcoming at the same time. It’s difficult. 

Where he’s seated, on one side of him is Tony and Rhodey and Everett Ross, and on the other is Nat and someone who just happens to be the Prince of Wakanda. She always knows how to get to the most important people somehow. He’s sure it isn’t how things are usually done. CIA agent seated with Tony Stark, and foreign prince seated with ex-soviet assassin seated with Captain America. But really there’s no precedent, no standard for this sort of thing. And there’s probably too many people to make an order out of it anyway. At another end of the conference room, he’s pretty sure he spots Coulson and the rest of his people and maybe Hill, too. 

The King of Wakanda is on the podium, right now. King T’Chaka is all grace and dignity and solemnity.

“...Our people's blood is spilled on foreign soil. Not only because of the actions of criminals, but by the indifference of those pledged to stop them. Victory at the expense of the innocent is no victory at all. 

“When stolen Wakandan vibranium was used to make a terrible weapon, we in Wakanda were forced to question our legacy. Those men and women killed in Nigeria were part of a goodwill mission from a country too long in the shadows. We will not, however, let misfortune drive us back. We will fight to improve the world we wish to join. I am grateful to the Avengers for supporting this initiative. Wakanda is proud to extend its hand in peace...”

Because Steve is feeling a little on edge right now (to put it mildly,) because he’s feeling hypervigilant about everyone and everything in the room right now, he notices Prince T’Challa’s frame tense up, and then Nat’s beside him, and then suddenly the prince is on his feet and — 

“ _ EVERYBODY GET DOWN! _ ”

Everything happens too fast, as it always does, and yet it seems to all be moving in slow motion, too.

The room erupts. He can't tell the floor from the remains of the ceiling from all the shattered glass from all the splintered wood. There seems to be ash and debris and dust everywhere. Even as he's picking himself up and checking on his teammates, he hears a cry, and Prince T'Challa is stumbling towards his father, and then he's on his knees gathering the body of the King into his arms and clutching tight. 

But Steve has super-hearing — he reckons he's not the only one here who does, in this room full of enhanced — but try as he might, he can't find King T'Chaka's heartbeat. He can hear all the chaos, the screaming, jumping pulses going wild from adrenaline and panic. But not his.

He's gone. The King is dead.

Smoke, fire, noise. Suddenly, it feels all too familiar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	12. even though you mean the most to me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late...I have no excuse, I just... forgot.

_"An update on the Vienna International Centre bombing — currently none of the enhanced people present at the conference are official subjects, though, there are definitely speculations if that's just to keep the goodwill, or if perhaps not all of those present were registered. It would certainly be hard to tell, with the pushes to keep identities safe._

_"However, in the last few hours, a new lead on the investigation has appeared. Within the hour before and after the devastation, James Buchanan Barnes was sighted by CCTV and allegedly some witnesses. Barnes, more well known for his place in the history books as Captain America's right hand man, is also better known to the intelligence community as the Winter Soldier — an operative for the terrorist organisation HYDRA…"_

The ‘panel of experts’ on the news are all talking about how this is all _completely unprecedented_ and there's no basis for these situations. And there are some whose views might be considered extremes: that none of this would have happened if the UN tried to contain this movement of enhanced rather than encouraging, trying to legitimize. Some who are the opposite: that if anything, the attack is just a reason to try harder. And there are some who are conflicted and unsure and who look like they'd rather be anywhere else.

There's a lot of _us_ or _them_ talk, and a lot of _we can't try to separate enhanced from the general population. People we might consider enhanced are all around us — take Hawkeye, take Tony Stark._

_"Clearly the enhanced don't want to be apart of society. We can't just forget about Barnes, after all. He's one of them, too, and look where that got us."_

_"So you're taking the act of one as the will of a group now? And you forget that the Winter Soldier was an operative of HYDRA, and perhaps more importantly a brainwashed operative — an American prisoner of War."_

One thing that's not in question, though, is that the Winter Soldier — _your pal, your Bucky —_ set off a bomb at the Vienna International Centre.

Twelve people killed.

Twenty four in the hospital.

They're still staying in their hotel at Vienna. All of the enhanced are staying in the same place. Nobody is allowed to leave the city.

None of _them,_ anyway.

Because even though they aren't suspects and Bucky is the suspect, all of them are the same, practically, to them anyway. No exceptions. He and Nat are sharing a room, and Tony and Rhodey are paired off naturally, because they all need someone to watch their six.

It's pretty nice, the room. Vienna is a tourist spot, and they're the _Avengers_ so it was always gonna be pretty decent. And even though all of them can afford it, there's free food being served downstairs. So it's really not terrible.

Except they can't leave, and all of them are just rounded up here. Maybe it's just the paranoid part of his brain, but he can't help but feel like they're all sitting ducks just waiting to be taken out in one fell swoop.

* * *

"That is a nice drawing, Captain Rogers," says a voice.

"Thank you, Prince T'Challa," Steve replies amicably but sets his charcoal down nonetheless. "It's a good way to clear the mind."

"Indeed," replies the prince.

The hotel restaurant is crammed, even as big and grand as it is. There’s too many people with jumpy reflexes having to rub shoulders in too small a space, and that’s not even including those up in their rooms at the moment. He’s with Natasha, who’s mostly surveying the other residents, sitting at one of the smaller tables, snacking on some Danish pastries and orange juice, and doing some quick study sketches. Nothing too special. Nat is sipping a black coffee, looking on guard at all times.

“Your Majesty,” Natasha nods, offering up their other seat. The Prince takes it.

“Miss Romanoff,” nods Prince T’Challa. “I hope you are well.”

Even though his tone is amicable enough, Steve sees how his fists are clenched at his side, his posture rigid, eyes bloodshot. Well, all things considered, the man can hardly expect to look _too_ polished.

Steve is on edge nonetheless.

"Well enough," Nat responds, amicably cool. "And you?"

"Miss Romanoff, my father just passed."

At least he's getting straight to the point. Somehow, ‘I'm sorry for your loss’ doesn't quite seem to cut it.

"Yes, we're so sorry, T’Challa," Steve says anyway, because as always there doesn't seem to be any other way to respond, really. "If there's anything we can do—"

"There is," Prince T'Challa interrupts, holding up a hand. "There is, Captain. That is why I am here. My father is dead, and I am going to find Sergeant Barnes — the _Winter Soldier —_ and avenge him. I hope I have your full cooperation."

"Prince T'Challa—"

"I know you have your own personal ties to this man, Captain Rogers. But consider, he killed my father and ten others yesterday. He must be brought down to face his crimes."

"Task force will decide who brings in Barnes," Nat starts, already looking alarmed.

"Miss Romanoff," and he pauses, takes a long but shallow breath. He looks like anyone else who's just lost a loved one, but T'challa is in the position to actually do something. Steve isn't sure if that's worse. "In my culture, death is not the end. It is more of a… stepping-off point. You reach out with both hands and Bast and Sekhmet, they lead you into the green veldt where… you can run forever."

There's a coldness to Prince T'Challa's voice. Soft and almost detached in a way. He's fiddling about with some sort of ornate ring on his finger — family heirloom, perhaps — and if Steve couldn't hear his pulse, he might be fooled.

"That sounds very peaceful," Nat responds carefully, cautiously.

Prince T'Challa smiles, bitter and icy. "My father thought so —  I am not my father."

"T'Challa—" Natasha starts.

And Steve wants to say something too, except he's not sure what because if it were him, he'd probably be doing the exact same.

"Don't bother, Miss Romanoff."

* * *

"Hey, have you spoken to Sam yet?" Natasha murmurs, passing him a Diet Coke from the minibar — which is free, too, pleasantly enough.

The four of them are gathered in Rhodey's and Tony's room, mostly because Tony insists on them sticking together, and apparently their room is "better." It's not a bad suggestion, though. He probably does feel better knowing his friends are in immediate sight. Rhodey is seated next to him, hunched over his laptop and pouring over various media outlets and what seems to be hundreds of emails. Tony is mostly watching a German drama, and from what Steve can tell there's been at least five cases of adultery, two kidnappings, about three murders, and Steve still isn't sure what it's about. But mostly, Steve's pretty sure he's trying to ignore his constantly buzzing phone.

Which, same.

"Not yet," he admits, frowning. "I probably should, huh."

Nat throws him a look of pure, open judgement and he winces. "Yes. _Of course_ you should. He's probably left you over a hundred messages right now. He called me three times already, freaking out ‘cause you weren't picking up."

"He called me twice," both Tony and Rhodey add simultaneously.

"...Right. I'll call him now."

Of course, it's not that Steve hasn't _want_ ed to call Sam, it's just that everything's been…a _lot_ , and it's all just skipped his mind. He hasn't heard from Wanda or Vision back at the compound either.

Some Captain.

He excuses himself to the bathroom, freshly debugged, obviously, to make the call. It's all gleaming white tiles and white lights and surprisingly spacious so Steve sits himself on the edge of the bathtub to keep from pacing. He has thirty-eight missed calls from Sam — only five messages, though. Just:

**Sam 🦅: Good luck for ur speech 😘😘**

**Sam 🦅: Steve, are you Okay? Text me back as soon as you read this okay?**

**Sam 🦅: Steve are you getting this? I swear to God if you don't pick up**

**Sam 🦅: I just saw the news about Barnes. Call me immediately.**

**Sam 🦅: call me I rlly need to talk to u about something.**

Sam picks up after only one tone, anyway.

" _Steve?"_

"Yep."

" _Oh thank God."_

 _"_ Hey Sam. I'm okay."

" _Hey Sam. I'm okay,"_ Sam mocks, deepening his voice for a second before going back to normal. It makes Steve smile a little though. " _You better be okay. Seriously, what the fuck, Rogers?"_

"I'm sorry, I just— things have been…"

" _Yeah, I can tell. You sure know how to make a guy worry, huh?"_

"S'a bad habit, I guess."

" _You can't help it. It's those eyes man, I tell you."_

"I don't know…these eyes are nothing compared to yours."

" _Man, Vienna's making you smooth, Rogers. Slowly, though, it wasn't that good."_

"High praise."

_"Seriously, though. When do you think they'll let you guys all come back?"_

Steve takes a breath. "I don't know. I'm not even sure if we'll being going when they let us. I feel like we should stay until this mess is all cleaned up, see it through."

_"Yeah, I was afraid you'd say that."_

"I'm sorry."

" _Don't be. I've known you long enough to know you're a stubborn bastard who does the right thing, especially if it's the harder thing. And that's high praise for real. "_

"It is, it is. Thanks. Look, we'll keep you updated. How's everyone back home?"

There's a short pause.

" _We're all fine. Worried, of course — God, can you imagine if Wanda and Vision had come with?"_

 _"_ Yeah…probably wouldn't have gone down pretty. What about you?"

" _I'm fine. Trying to hold down the fort. Miss you, of course."_

"Of course."

_"You?"_

"I'm… okay. Well, I'm kind of trying not to freak out, actually. And this whole deal with Bucky… Sam I can't— I don't know that to do. I don't think I can just let them..."

" _Yeah, Steve. Uh— that's what I wanted to talk to you about."_

"Yeah, I know. I just need to take everything as it comes, and—"

_"No! No that's not what I…Steve, he didn't do it, Steve. Bucky didn't do it."_

"What're you talking about?"

" _Bucky didn't set off the bomb. He couldn't've… He can’t have even been in Vienna because he’s in New York.”_

Everything just halts.

"What," he says before his brain even fully processes the words. There's like a backlog of unread files in his mind trying to churn out each report and for a second he doesn't even know what's going on. There's a churning feeling in his stomach, though. "What are you—"

_“I have proof. Because he’s been with me the whole damn time."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angie will be back soon I promise!!


	13. don't disturb the ghost of you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> whooo manpain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dont worry this fic has a happy ending I SWEAR

The CIA headquarters are...grey to put it concisely. Abuzz with activity but a carefully measured not-too-much kind of activity. It’s big and full of computers and monitors and people in suits and so clearly full of secrets. At least that’s what it seems like to Steve.

Bucky, or the Winter Soldier, or at the very least, James Barnes, sits hunched into himself, closed off, silent, but shoulder to shoulder with Sam. Nobody quite knows what to say, even though Sam keeps glancing between him and Bucky, looking conflicted. Secretary Ross, they’ve been told, will be with them in a minute, and luckily, the man likes his voice enough for the three of them.

He looks good though, Bucky. Certainly better than the last time Steve saw him up close — though, that’s hadn’t been hard to beat. His hair, though still on the long side, has been given a neater cut, and he’s discovered conditioner, apparently, and there’re fresh clothes on him, and less shadows under his eyes, if only a little. He looks...okay. And it’s almost enough to make Steve feel some kind of relief, that his best friend — or what’s left of him, a voice whispers — is doing, if not fine, at least okay. He’s okay. 

Still, aside from the first few seconds of their  _ reunion _ , Bucky has not looked at him once, instead is staring resolutely at the floor.

“Sorry for the wait,” begins Secretary Ross upon entering, though, Steve is pretty sure nobody is convinced. “I just got off the phone with Prince T’Challa of Wakanda, though I imagine the title will be changing soon.” He gives each of them a slow, deliberate smile, stopping on Bucky. “He’s after your head, you know.”

“He didn’t do it,” Sam cuts in before Steve can himself, jaw set. “I — we have proof.”

“Yeah, says the Winter Soldier’s best friend’s best friend. Sure.”

“I have the  _ fucking proof—“ _

“All right, hold your horses, Wilson,” Ross says, amused. Steve doesn’t see what the guy thinks is so funny, though. “I’ll deal with you later. For now, though, Barnes is gonna have to come into our custody.”

“Absolutely not,” Steve says, at the same time Sam says “Hold on, you can’t just—“

“On the contrary, Captain, Wilson, I think you’ll find that I can.”

“It wasn’t him, though,” and Steve can feel his fists clenching automatically, as they always do when he’s preparing for a fight. “You have no right. He came here willingly. He’s done nothing wrong—“

“The Winter Soldier has  _ numerous _ crimes under his belt—“

“None that you can prove,” Sam retorts testily. “Other than DC back in ‘13. And I think it’s pretty clear he wasn’t acting of his own free—“

“That may be,  _ Sergeant  _ Wilson, but—“

“But nothing! At the very least, he’s still a prisoner of war—“

“ _ Sam! _ ” says Bucky, for the first time since this whole damned conversation on his fate began. And Steve would be lying if he said it doesn’t hurt that it’s addressed to Sam, not him. “Sam, it’s okay.”

“Buck—“ begins Steve, and hopes his voice doesn’t sound as confused, hurt, as he feels.

But Bucky has nothing to say to him. He looks at Sam intently for a few moments too long that it’s clear they’re having some sort of discussion only without words. It ends with Sam sighing and sitting down and Bucky breaking away, turning back to Secretary Ross. Steve has to swallow his breath because something inside him aches, raw and fresh and bleeding, but it’s an old wound. His oldest. And he’s too far away to even stick a band-aid on it to heal.

“I’ll go with you,” he nods to Ross and looks down.

Ross smiles, and spreads his hands in an easygoing kind of way as if to say  _ see, what did I tell you.  _ It makes Steve’s blood boil.

“You better be giving him a fucking trial at least,” says Sam, before Ross can get a single word out of that smug mouth of his. “And he’s enhanced so you can’t do a fucking thing other than detain him until the three months is over.”

The Secretary just shrugs, nonplussed. “We’ll see.”

It’s only when Bucky follows Ross out of the room, that he —  _ his pal, his Bucky —  _ meets Steve’s eyes. He doesn’t say anything, though. And Steve’s not sure what there is to say — or rather, what there isn’t to say. He offers a nod, though, and then looks down again and turns back to Sam.

“It’ll be okay, Sam,” says Bucky again. 

“Shut up, Barnes,” replies Sam. And it hurts to watch, because Steve sees Sam’s fist unclench for half a second before they clench again, like he’s keeping himself from reaching out, and he’s sure Bucky notices as well. 

It hurts like hell and Steve’s not sure where to even begin.

The door closes. The room seems too bright and too dim all at once. Sam sits down again, uncrosses his arms, slumps.

“Well?” he says, meeting his eyes straight on, not defensive or anything, just ready.

“Well what?” Steve answers after a breath. 

Sam fixes Steve a look which says something like “are you an idiot” and sighs, rubbing his face and looking exhausted. They all are.

“You haven’t asked for an explanation yet,” he replies, face still in his hands, voice resigned and sounding all wrong again.

“No, I haven’t.”

“Or a single question.

“No,” he says, and bites his lip.

“Or an apology.”

Steve sits down a little way from Sam and then half a second later stands up again, and he isn’t sure if he wants to scream or cry or laugh because this is the first time Bucky has looked at him — as  _ Bucky _ , and seen him as  _ Steve  _ — in so fucking long. He came back! 

“Are you gonna give one?” Steve asks without looking at his partner either. 

Honestly, he doesn’t know what to ask for either. Knows he wants an explanation, wants to ask questions, wants both his best friends back. Doesn’t know if he wants an apology, because he doesn’t know where to pick at or where to ask for one. 

He knows he just wants things to be okay. He doesn’t want things to be messed up again. He knows they already are, and maybe they always will be. 

Sam shrugs, and Steve leaves and closes the door behind him.

* * *

 

Even as busy and hectic and disorganized as things have been lately, Steve always makes sure to go for his morning run. It’s a bit like a clock, you see. Unless there is a Captain America emergency, he wakes up at four and runs from four-thirty to five-thirty. It’s something JARVIS said would help, even before he’d met Sam, to establish a routine, of sorts. To help him feel more balanced, more in control.

And it was how he met Sam, of course. And Sam had mentioned off-hand a few months into it that his own reasoning was partially the same. 

(“And also, I was losing my abs just sitting on the couch. Not everyone’s a super soldier, you know. And that would’ve been sad because: have you seen me?”)

There’s a nice park near their accommodations in Langley. Virginia is nice enough, though he doesn’t know it very well, but the park has a decent stretch of grass, and the weather at this time of year is good, so it’s fine. 

Sam is staying in the same building as him, but he’s not out running. Apparently it’s his cousin’s birthday, and Sam had originally been going down to visit, but now he can’t leave Bucky. So Steve had walked past his door at four-thirty, running shoes and everything on, and heard him talking on his phone, voice still bleary from having woken only a minute before, rather than half an hour. 

There’s no-one else in the park, which is hardly surprising, but being alone in it makes him want to brace for danger. And it’s not paranoia, exactly, more a muscle memory still in use, making him strung tight and wanting to snap. Like he should be running away from some lurking shadow, rather than just exercising. 

He’s got a playlist on, one which Angie sent to him on the Spotify. Full of old-timey tunes — some he’s pretty familiar with, most he’s not. But he recognises the style, though, and a couple of the names. It’s not the playlist he usually listens to with Sam, when they’re running.

The gravel path beneath his feet is hard, interrupting the dirt and the grass, and every time one shoe lands dozens of pieces of dry grit get displaced as though in an explosion. 

When he was jogging with Sam, he never ran as hard. Just enough to keep Sam on his toes and to be able to pass an “on your left” every so often. He never got tired. 

But right now, when the rest of the city seems to still be asleep, or at the very least drowsy, a fog of sleeplessness over it, Steve kicks up gravel with every step, leaving a trail.

And he supposes, JARVIS’s computerized voice in his ear, that’s some kind of control too.

* * *

It’s fitting that Nat decided to take the journey from Vienna to Langley with him, to meet Sam and Bucky. So it’s the three of them now — Tony and Rhodey are still needed in Vienna. That’s how most of this Winter Soldier business started anyway — at least for him.

(No it isn’t.)

Nat knocks on the door to where he’s moping in his rooms, and he sets down his sketchbook and lets her in, and Sam takes a step to follow her through, and hesitates. 

“Come in,”  Steve nods, throat feeling dry. 

“Thanks.”

“Your place is nicer than mine,” Nat says, an amused quirk to her lips. “Figures they’d give Captain America the biggest room.”

He shrugs, “We can switch, if you want. I don’t mind.”

“Nah, but maybe they would.”

He allows Nat to rummage around the room for a bit, and both him and Sam sit in silence. Sam looking out the window, and Steve following Natasha around the room with his eyes as she goes through the nits and crannies. It’s a system they’re both familiar with, from tackling HYDRA and months on the road chasing after its heads, but it’s never felt quite this stiff.

“Aha,” Nat says cheerfully, holding out the collection of metallic black gizmos in her hand triumphantly, before dropping them on the laminate flooring and squishing them with the heel of her boot. “Gotcha.”

“Thanks, Nat,” he says, because he’s getting real sick of intelligence agencies, if he’s going to be completely honest. 

Nat shrugs and sits down beside them as well, her eyes lingering over the sketches spread out over the table. Most of them are random, some of them are of the other Avengers, his friends, and a few are of Bucky. 

“These are nice,” she comments, picking one up which is of Angie and Peggy (and he almost drew himself, but stopped himself.) “You know, if we really are made to resign, at least you’d have vocational options.”

_ Unlike me _ , she doesn’t say but Steve hears it anyway. Because out of all of them, she’s the one who’s never known a life before or outside of this. Not even Bucky or the Winter Soldier, or whoever he is now, could say that.

“Nat—” he starts, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She shakes him off and pulls a smile on her face. “Too soon?” 

There’s a beat, and then Steve hears Sam inhale slowly, and he braces himself. 

“How’re you holding up, Steve?” he begins, and he feels his partner’s gaze on him but he doesn’t meet it.

“Fine, I guess. How about you? I know you guys — “ and he cuts himself off. His tearducts seem too hot and watery, and he bites his lip. 

Because the truth is, he didn’t know. And nobody lied to him, he just didn’t know anything — still doesn’t. Only that Bucky was with Sam “ _ the whole damned time.” _

And he didn’t know. 

The ache in his chest feels eerily similar to when Angie showed him the photos in black and white, of her and Peggy, and Daniel Sousa, and Howard and Maria, Edwin and Ana Jarvis, and tiny Tony Stark laughing, passed between laps of friends which weren’t his friends. 

Only this time the pain is a little sharper than the dull and old sores, and the photo is now. 

* * *

**YOU : Did you know?**

**Nat 🕷: No I didn’t, but I suspected**

**Nat 🕷: I’m sorry, Steve.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me in the comments <3


	14. tell me what we built this for

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> did u miss angie

“Hey, do you think Usain Bolt would need to sign the Accords? What about the Rock?” Sam says conversationally, dumping a bag of what smells like Thai on the table.

“They’re not exactly in the same business as us,” Natasha replies, her eyebrows quirking up amusedly.

Sam waves her off, continuing as he passes her and Steve their boxes of takeout. “Okay, sure. But hear me out, what if they just saw someone being, I don’t know, mugged and then saved them? Everyone has to start somewhere, and the Rock already has a name, if that was a requirement.”

For a moment, Natasha looks to be seriously considering this, hesitating before she replies. “Maybe Clint should just join the Olympics team.”

“Nah, he doesn’t have an ounce of patriotism in him,” sighs Sam, digging into his box of noodles with an expression which almost says:  _ shame _ . 

“Good for him,” says Steve.

Since the three of them are trying to stick together, both for security reasons and convenience, there's not enough space for awkwardness between Sam and he. Not that Natasha would allow it in the first place. Even when there's a silence it feels amenable. Even when it's just him and Sam, and Natasha's nipped off to the toilet or something, they're still able to talk comfortably. And to Steve it's weird because it feels like there should be something, even though it's relieving because it feels like he just got Sam back.

He still hasn't kissed Sam since he left for Vienna, though.

Sam is usually the calm one, out of the three of them. The amount of times he's told both Steve and Natasha to "chill" is terrible, really. But he's paced the length of Steve's suite at least 27 times in the past minute, his takeout in hand, trying to distract himself, and they've been in his room all afternoon.  They're waiting, you see. 

Waiting on three things: a pizza delivery, because Steve knows he's still gonna be hungry later; a Skype call from Vienna — although Tony thinks they should use something called  _ Discord _ instead, and the name is fitting he supposes; and a call from the CIA headquarters regarding the obvious. He can guess which one Sam is most worried about.

Waiting makes Steve feel useless, though. It makes them all feel useless, he can tell. 

But the truth is, there's not much here they can do, and they can't leave Bucky—  _ he  _ can't and he's pretty sure  _ Sam  _ can't— without at least talking to him. Not when the world is waiting to tear him to shreds. He's had enough of that to last a lifetime, over seventy years worth of it. 

Steve forces himself to sit still, opens his box and breathes in the scent of chilli and rich spices and rice. The first time he tried spicy food in the twenty-first century, it made his eyes water just from smelling it, and he had to down about a gallon of milk after. But he's gotta admit, it's really grown on him. It's weird how, even now, when he's already changed from lil' Stevie the punk from Brooklyn to Captain America, or already woken up from the ice, when he's already done all the transformation, all the  _ befores  _ and  _ afters  _ — it's weird how things are still changing. 

Maybe it's a good thing, being static isn't usually the best attribute, after all. There's no end point from development unless you're a corpse, really.

But Steve is so tired.

They've already made a good start on their meals when his phone starts to ring from his pocket, both Sam and Natasha still and Steve fumbles, rushing to answer it.

"Hello," he answers, looking back and forth between Sam and Nat, who are both watching the phone like it's a bomb, silent, assessing, and wishes he was in the habit of checking the call ID.

" _ Oh hey Steve, I'm not interruptin' am I?"  _ greets Angie, almost comically unaware of the tension in the room.

"Hi Angie, how're you?" Steve breathes, relieved, and he sees Sam and Nat relax as well. 

_ "I'm fine. How are you? How's Vienna — see any of the sights yet? I've heard it's pretty special there." _

"It is, yeah," he bites his lip, hesitating. "I'm actually not there anymore. I'm with Sam and Natasha — we're in Virginia, Langley. I'll explain later."

There's a pause, before Angie gives a slightly dry laugh. " _ Yeah, I'm sure you will _ ," she says. " _ You always do. You always do. Hey? Put me on speaker will you? I wanna say hi to them _ ."

Even though both his companions have gone back to their food, Nat is also tapping away on her phone, a frown etched onto her face, and Sam is still pacing. And he can hear Angie waiting patiently (but not _ that _ patiently) on the other end of the line, and there's something light about her which has always made Steve feel better, take a step back, if nothing else, and sometimes friends are for sharing with other friends, he supposes. 

So Steve thinks about it, for maybe a second or two, and says: "Sure. Hey guys, I'm putting Angie on speaker.

Natasha looks up and doesn't say no, and Sam pauses in his pacing finally. Steve sets the phone on the table.

" _ Afternoon,"  _ she begins, voice still sounding tinny through the speakers. Steve turns up the volume. " _ What, y'all can't even spare me a hello?" _

She's testing the waters a bit, he can tell. Usually she's full speed ahead but she likes to make sure she's being listened to first. 

"Hey Angie," greets Sam, at the same time Natasha gives an uncharacteristically uncertain 'hello.'

_ "I guess y'all can't tell me too much about what's been happening, classified an' all that. But I hear there's been trouble." _

"I think that's putting it lightly, Angie," Sam responds, snorting lightly. 

" _ Yeah, that's at least one thing which never changes." _

"Seems so," agrees Nat, and a resigned sort of amusement slips onto her face. And Steve feels it. At this point, he's pretty sure they all do. "Natasha Romanov," she adds, "I don't believe we've spoken, Miss Martinelli."

It's a little weird in a  _ we've come full circle _ way. Steve who first spoke to Angie when she was Howard's old friend, Peggy's old lover, Tony's Aunt Angie. A few second hand links which might now be first-hand. And now Steve gets to introduce her to his friends— current friends, not memories — and he hopes oddly desperately that she will approve of them. Almost as though joining the loop, stitching up the break in the rope where he should have lived his life, with the one he has now.

It's probably not supposed to work like that, but when has life ever worked the way it was supposed to? Especially not for Steve. 

" _ Natasha Romanov. Natasha Romanov… Russian is it? I recognise that from somewhere,"  _ Angie repeats to herself, musing _.  _

_ " _ Do you?" says Natasha almost too lightly, sitting up now.

" _ Oh yeah, I never forget names. That's how you made it into the big leagues, back in the day. Where did you say you were from?"  _

_"_ I'm an Avenger, Miss Martinelli," tries Natasha.

_ "Sure, I know that. But what about before…" _

"I was with SHIELD before the fall—"

" _ And before that? C'mon you gotta give me something. I'd like to think I've had tea with about every SHIELD agent who's shadowed me since the fifties." _

Natasha swallows, hesitating— and he gets it, some truths are yours to keep. "I'm Russian, ma'am, yes.  I went to school there."

There's silence at the other end of the line and Steve holds his breath. Hopes that the call isn't becoming a mistake. It never has been before, but you can never quite tell. He holds his breath.

" _ Oh _ ," sighs Angie . " _ It's all right. It's all right. You got rid of the accent real good, didn't ya?" _

"I hope so," Natasha replies after a pause.

" _ So did Dot, fooled me too many times. She was like you, that girl. Called herself Dorothy Underwood— Dottie, Dot — I don't suppose it kept, though. I don't try to remember her much, but she had a real winner of a smile. Very pretty. I think all she wanted was to be beautiful. _ " 

There's another pause, and it strikes Steve again of just how old Angie is, even two years younger than he is, technically. It's almost dreadful how easily it is she slips into the memories. 

" _ You know, I'm not gonna tear you apart. Lord knows you'd do it first. Gave English a real headache for your troubles. Both of you." _

Natasha sits still, as though she’s afraid. When Steve first met her, he’d thought she was the type of person who was never afraid. Not of normal things anyway, because he knows everybody’s afraid of something. But really, she’s just like anyone else. She wants a family. She wants a home. She wants to be beautiful. 

Just like Sam, and Peggy, and Angie, and himself.

On the table in front of her, her phone begins to buzz. Every single one of them jumps, even Natasha. 

“Sorry, excuse me,” says Natasha, on her feet already. “It was...nice talking to you, Miss Martinelli.”

“ _ Likewise, Miss Romanoff, _ ” Angie chirps back, either completely unsuspect of the tension stringing the room or uncaringly cutting through it. He suspects the latter. “And it’s Angie.”

“Angie…” murmurs Natasha, and a small smile graces her lips, just briefly. “All right. Then it’s Natasha.”

_ “See that it is.” _

It's been a long time since Steve’s seen Natasha’s...past discussed so candidly. It’s not really his to speak of, of course, but part of it is that it’s just too terrible to really even want to come to terms with. And that’s just from the outside. Even in his thoughts it feels like he should sensor it. 

_ "I wasn't too much, was I?" _

"Nah, I wouldn’t worry about it, Angie," says Sam. "I think it's just been a while since anyone's said all this so straight up without dancing around it."

_ "She should talk to more people from our age."  _ Angie says at length, a quiet lull to her voice. " _ Once you get old, you realise there ain't no time for all that waffle. I’ve known Americans, Brits, Frenchmen to hold grudges on krauts for decades at a time. But then eventually you realise that some of those guys — not all 'course, but most — were just people on a different side, and back then people didn't get to choose their side. You got on one side of the line and stuck with it." _

By the time Angie hangs up, Steve has three more films to watch —  _ The Great Gatsby, Jurrassic Park,  _ and _ The Hunger Games. W _ ell _ ,  _ technically more than three. 

The insertion of normalcy into the day is almost jolting, what with everything happening, strange even. It's funny, he thinks, how quickly normal can bend, keep reinventing itself, and how difficult it is to take note of until part of it bends back on itself.

Maybe that doesn't make sense — but that doesn't seem to matter, these days.

"He's asking for us," Natasha tells them when she walks back in, phone still held in her hand. Neither him or Sam have to think much to figure out who  _ he _ is.

* * *

Steve isn't sure what to expect when they go to see Bucky —  _ him _ . Maybe some chain and a muzzle, strapped to a chair in a metre wide cage, or something. He's not sure what to expect of Bucky —  _ him —  _ either. 

The reality of it is a dimly lit room, about four square metres, with a sink and toilet and a bed with a mattress and a chair, a synthetic cleanliness to the room. Four floors below ground, but there were lower floors on the buttons on the elevator, so it could be worse.

_ It could be worse is always a depressing thought; _ that's what Bucky's little sister, Little Rebecca Barnes, used to say.

The reality of it is, is that there's a screen in front of him, some electric field of sorts, like a cage but not glass or steel bars. 

In the end, Sam and Natasha wait upstairs, only Steve is allowed to see him, never mind that Sam has been with him " _ the whole damned time." _ Captain America only, and Steve wants to punch something but he can't because he needs to go downstairs just as much as he dreads it.

The reality of it is a man lying on a squeaky steel frame bed, arm pillowing his head, staring up at the ceiling. 

"Um," Steve begins, and his throat isn't dry at all but it feels as though it should be. "Bu— is it… Can I—"

"You can still call me Bucky, if you want," says Bucky. "We tried out James for a while, which was okay. Didn't feel quite right, but then nothing does. Sam said to give it time."

Steve swallows, looks around for some second hand thing to busy his mind with. "All right," he says. "Hi Bucky."

"Hi Steve," says Bucky wryly. When he turns around and sits up, his face is...not quite grim, but as you'd probably expect for someone who’s been in solitary for over two days. And who has, of course, had much worse ones.  "Where's Sam?"

"Apparently only I'm allowed to see you," he replies, and it still feels like he's holding his breath.

"'Course they said that. Goddamnit." Bucky lets out a sigh, rushed and short, and rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand. Briefly, Steve wonders what he did with the other.

"Sorry to disappoint."

"Nah. Well, kinda. Take a seat will you? The floors okay."

"Right."

Steve's...Steve's not quite sure what to say. It feels like he should say  _ something,  _ though. Because there's almost everything to say and he's not sure where to begin.

_ Maybe you shouldn't, _ a voice which sounds suspiciously like Angie's tells him.  _ Maybe this time you gotta just listen.  _

Because, as much as Steve knows Bucky — and as much, more or less so that may be, as he doesn't— he can tell he's got a lot to say. A lot he's wanted to say for a long time, be it scream or cry or laugh it. Even though his old friend doesn't quite know how to say it.

_ It's a skill like anything else, _ Steve thinks.  _ You just gotta practice. _

"Shit," begins Bucky, which is as fine a start as any. "Look at us, huh?"

"Yeah."

"I’ve gotta be honest — I’ve been runnin’ over what to say to you in my head for hours now.”

_ Months, _ Steve corrects internally. “You get any closer?”

Bucky shrugs and runs his hand through his hair — less well kept than it was two days ago, but still better than DC. 

“I was never as good at my words as you, punk.”

The old name tugs at something buried which he hasn’t felt in a long time. Not since Bucky fell all that time ago, he reckons.

“I think I was just good at riling people up, or pissin’ them off.”

“That’s true; I was the charmer.”

When it feels like Bucky is still gathering his words, if he has them, Steve swallows. “Wh— Buck, can I ask— why?”

“Why what?”

“You — Sam —”

“ _ God _ Steve,” interrupts Bucky, and he sounds so tired, so frustrated at the world, and while Steve can relate he can’t really. “ _ Fucking hell _ .”

“Buck—”

“No, Steve. Let me finish,” breathes Bucky almost harshly, and so Steve takes a breath too and holds it.

_ Listen _ , he reminds himself.  

“I— I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry that I ran. I’m sorry that I left enough trails for you to come runnin’ after me. I’m sorry that I couldn’t come to you, even though you needed me to. I just— I wasn’t ready.”

Steve bites his lip, and he wants  _ so much  _ to just crash through the barrier and just hold onto his best friend and hold on tight and not let go. And he doesn’t even know if his best friend wants the same thing, if he is ready for even something like that.  And it aches. 

“That’s okay, Bucky,” he says.

“I don’t even know — I don’t even know if I’m a James or a Bucky or fucking  _ soldat,”  _ and the word, with the inflexion and everything, makes Steve flinch even though Bucky doesn’t. “I don’t even know who I’m supposed to be let alone what I am now.”

“I don’t think you have to.” The advice seems so...unsure even as it passes through his lips, but it also feels right. He’d been chasing a ghost, really, someone that doesn’t exist, and he  _ knows  _ that. It wasn’t right for him, and it wasn’t right for Bucky to try and form himself into a phantom. “I don’t think you gotta be anything, anyone. You just have to be.”

“Funny, that’s like what Sam’s been sayin’ to me.”

“He gives good advice.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees, eyes soft, ”I know.” He looks back to Steve, serious once more. “Listen, I know you, Steve. Or at least I’m pretty sure. Self-righteous punk who put newspaper in his shoes. Listen, you can’t put any of this on Sam. I don’t care if you’re mad or just think you should be mad at Sam. I asked him not to tell you, not to tell anyone. It’s on me if you’re mad, Steve. Not him. He was just doin’ what I said.”

"How long, Buck?" he asks, and when he looks through the barrier, it's as though Bucky is part of the wall. As though the two people he loves most have built themselves into a wall that he didn't even notice constructing ahead of him.

 “Why do you think he moved out, Steve?” Bucky deadpans. “I needed— I needed help. And I was — as Sam likes to call it, I guess — takin’ it step by step. I wasn’t ready to face everyone. I wasn’t ready to—”

_ I wasn’t ready to face you _ .

“Okay,” Steve says again. “That’s… That’s okay, Bucky.”

Maybe it was for the best, anyway. Because, look at them now. Steve wasn’t ready for Bucky either, not this Bucky anyway — maybe both of them aren’t ready still.

Ross gives them another half-hour before two guards come back down to escort Steve back upstairs. It’s probably pretty strange for them, escorting Captain America downstairs and back to see the Winter Soldier. Though, if they’re anything like their boss, maybe it’s not. 


	15. they are empty, they are worn

When the elevator doors open, Steve isn't surprised to find both parties on the offence. There are seats around but nobody is sitting in them. Secretary Ross is pacing the room looking like he's swallowed a lemon; Natasha has that poker face on, the one where she is a perfectly polished piece of marble and you can't break her — can’t try or else some shard will cut you; Sam has his arms crossed, a frustrated frown on his face which reveals the barely contained fury. 

"This is hardly proof, Sergeant Wilson," Ross is saying, gesturing dismissively at the table between them. 

"Are you  _ kidding _ me, Mr. Secretary? It's about the same amount of proof you have on him for Vienna!"

"Sam," says Natasha, and bites her lip.

"Captain Rogers," greets Secretary Ross, and his smile looks more like baring his teeth. "You've rejoined us just in time — we've got another guest arriving soon. Prince T'Challa."

“Great,” Steve replies, because he doesn’t know what to say. Nothing about any of this is  _ great _ .

On the table lies a few documents, spreadsheets and receipts and the like, and a few surveillance pictures taken from what he distinguishes as three separate places. A coffee shop, a parking lot and a clothing shop. None of which he recognises. Steve tries to swallow but instead his throat just constricts and everything, even the air, feels just a little too tight. Nothing is fitting properly anymore.

(Or maybe it’s just Steve who doesn’t.)

The elevator doors open again now ten minutes later, and Steve turns around to see Prince T’Challa step out, face tense, stricken in a way which aches low. Behind him, of course, are two of his Dora Milaje bodyguards.

“Afternoon,” Secretary Ross says stepping forward and extending a hand to shake, a much more pleasant smile on his face. “Prince T’Challa — I hear you are already acquainted with Mr. Rogers and Ms. Romanoff?”   
  
“I am,” says T’Challa, voice monotone, before turning towards the member of the party he’s unfamiliar with.     
  
“Sergeant Samuel Wilson,” Sam says, introducing himself before Ross can do it for him.    


T’Challa gives him a brief but unsubtle once-over, before he nods. “Good afternoon, Sergeant Wilson. Let us not dwell on the introductions.”

“Thank you, Prince T’Challa,” Secretary Ross says before anyone else can contribute. “We were just discussing the Winter Soldier.”

“ _ Bucky _ is innocent,” Sam reiterates, and though it’s repetitive there’s hardly much else to say. And coming from Sam Wilson, no matter what other details there are which Steve — Steve isn’t privy to (not yet, he hopes privately) — the point is, he knows that’s no lie. 

T’Challa takes a quick look towards the documents, pictures, proof scattered over the table, and then looks back up, a difficult expression settled onto his face.

"Sergeant Wilson," he says, and to his credit, the man does sound genuinely regretful. "As much as I am sure you are a good man, but as nice as it would be to see this man innocent, objectively, a few pictures where we cannot even see his face, where I only see you and a white man with long hair is not enough proof. Certainly not enough that it disproves the facial recognition we have for him in Vienna."

It's difficult to tell how well the Prince means it, although, as elusive as the nature of being the Prince of a lesser-known country is, T'challa has always seemed to be an honest sort of man. And it's rare that Steve gets that wrong. 

So maybe Prince T’Challa really does want Bucky, some man he does not know, to be innocent — of these crimes at least, since, regardless of what Steve himself thinks, everything else seems a little grey — but at the same time… He knows from experience it’s easier to take the ‘villain’ which is known. It’s harder when there’s nobody to blame directly, when it’s all up in the air, and the only place to direct your grief is inwards rather than a target.

He can hardly blame the man when, really, the evidence is on that side of the line, anyway. 

The defense in Sam’s eyes don’t fade completely, but they do soften, even if the undercurrent of anxiety doubles. 

“He’s innocent,” repeats Sam, though less harshly this time. “The reason we were so careful about surveillance was because I wasn’t gonna be the one to get Bucky thrown back in a cell. Or worse, HYDRA. The least he deserves is a fair trial.”

Prince T’Challa takes a long breath — it’s only been a week, after all, it can’t be easy. “A trial,” he repeats, with just a little difficulty. “Of course.”

There are other particulars to go over, of course, other than Bucky’s state of innocence going round in circles. The conditions he’s being kept in, how long is he going to stay there? Given that Sam is Bucky’s main ‘witness’ — so to speak — he should be able to at least  _ see  _ him. 

All that good stuff.

“Cheer up, Captain,” Ross says almost sardonically, clapping Steve lightly on the back. Steve fights a flinch but allows his jaw to clench. “You’re supposed to be our national icon — no use looking glum. Besides, it won’t be all bad. We’re bringing in a specialist to talk to Barnes.”

“You’re bringing a civilian into this?” questions Natasha, enough suspicion leaking into her voice that Steve can hear it. 

“Oh don’t worry, Romanoff. He’s highly trained. The best qualifications — a psychologist. And, from what I hear, it should do Barnes some good.”

“That sounds very honorable,” agrees Prince T’Challa, looking thoughtful. And maybe he’s right, but anything coming from Ross seems too much like a gift horse for Steve to agree.

“Yeah,” says Sam, arms crossed. “Real generous.”

* * *

The beverage options in the kitchen are surprisingly varied at the CIA headquarters. There’s coffee and a variety of tea-types and milk-types. It’s ironic that whatever catering staff here are more accommodating than the guys in charge. Steve isn’t surprised. 

Natasha has gone back to the hotel, supposedly. Probably not, of course, but Steve’s not going to question it. He doesn’t have the energy to, and besides, Nat would tell him if it was absolutely necessary anyway. Prince T’Challa has duties to return to, a crown to fill, of course.

Basically, it’s just him and Sam at the compound.

“Hey can you pass me the soy milk?” asks Sam, stirring his tea.

“Sure.”

Steve’s gone for chamomile himself, with a drizzle of honey. Given his physiology, it’s probably just placebo at this point, but it helps settle him somewhat. 

“We should probably call the others at some point,” says Sam, after a pause. “See how things are going on the other front.”

“‘Course,” says Steve. 

Steve swallows. 

It’s not difficult to talk  _ to Sam, _ it’s just difficult to  _ talk _ to Sam. He knows what to say — mostly — it’s just finding his voice, getting around the letters. 

“Listen,” he begins.

Sam lets out a rushed, sort of guttural sigh, but sips his tea and turns to face Steve anyway. The air about him isn’t hostile (Steve doesn’t think it could ever be), or even impatient. It’s just — guarded. 

Careful.

Somehow this is worse. 

“I understand — Bucky explained — why you didn’t tell me. I understand. Just — thank you for taking care of him, Sam.”

The silence and stillness about them seems a little less grey and Steve thinks, and hopes, he sees the tension in Sam’s body ease. Even just a little. 

Steve takes a sip of his tea and the sweetness settles comfortably in his stomach, just right. 

“I didn’t do it for you, but you’re welcome,” says Sam finally. “I’m sorry you didn’t know, though; that you had to find out how you did. I almost told you, you know.”

“Thanks,” he says, and smiles. It’s less forced than he expected. “I’m glad you didn’t. I know… I know he wasn’t ready.”  _ And neither was I. _

“He wasn’t,” agrees Sam, and he sounds a little sorry for that too, even though he shouldn’t be. “But he just needed some time, space. Y’know, all that old fashioned stuff.”

It’s an olive branch, and Steve’s not sure how much he deserves it but it’s there and he’ll be damned if he won’t take it. 

“Yeah,” he laughs, “I know.”

“‘Course you do.”

“I hope Bucky wasn’t too difficult,” Steve says, and it’s both by way of small talk and also just because — he wan’t to know. 

“Nah, he wasn’t... He was an asshole, of course. But, well,” Sam shrugs, a lightness to his eyes. “I guess I care about that guy now.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Steve replies, meaning it genuinely. Because, it feels different from when he first saw Sam and Bucky, not two days ago. For some reason hearing it now feels like some sort of triumph. The two people he cares most about, his two best friends, friends also. Even if he’s still not quite sure where to fit into that yet; maybe it’s because he feels a little more assured that, eventually, he will. 

“Me too.”

Sam takes another sip of his tea, steam lifting from it gently and disappearing into the air, and Steve takes a sip of his tea, too. 

“Steve,” says Sam, stepping a little closer to him. “We’re good.”

It’s almost unconscious how Steve relaxes into Sam’s gravity. Like cutting some sort of string holding him back.

“Oh good,” he breathes. “I — I’ve missed you.”

Sam smiles. “I missed you too, Steve.”

“Does this mean I get to kiss you now?”

“ _ Here?”  _ he splutters, coughing. “Y’know Ross and some other shady men are probably watching us.”

“So?” and Steve tries not to pout.

“ _ No _ , Steve,” insists Sam, although both of them are still inching slowly closer to each other. Steve is very hyper-aware of it. “You may hold my hand, though.”

It’ll have to do, of course. Ross and the whole CIA thing does tend to put a damper on things.

Sam’s hand is warm. The right kind of warm where it’s exactly right and just the kind you want. He’s got some sort of lotion on them, Steve thinks, because they’re sweetly soft even though he can still feel the callouses. And it fits. 

The world seems to make just a little more sense now. 

* * *

 

Nat returns (and utters a “thank god” upon seeing them again, together.)

After several loose ends in Vienna have been — not quite tied up, but marked with placeholders, Tony and Rhodey arrive in Langley after short check in at New York — Wanda and Vision are, of course, happy to be anywhere Secretary Ross is not. Everyone else, from what Steve gathers, wishes they were so lucky. 

By the time Secretary Ross’ so afamed psychologist arrives,  Ross, Prince T’Challa, Tony, Rhodey, Nat, Sam and himself are all there. “Like a little alt. Indie youtube rockband” says Tony, mostly to himself although Steve does laugh a little at it inside.

Actually, Sharon Carter is here too. She works for the CIA now — for Ross. Steve’s not quite sure what to make of this but, then again, that’s mostly his fault. And sometimes, after a situation arises, none of the options are ‘good.’ Some are just less bad than others. She offers everyone a brief nod and finds a seat on the other side of Sam. 

There’s a little screen in the room showing Bucky’s cell, since apparently usual patient-confidentiality doesn’t exist within the CIA. Bucky sits on his bed, sort of slumped, not exactly standoffish, but definitely not warmly either. Altogether, a little unresponsive. The psychologist, otherwise known as a Dr. H. Zemo, steps into the room, taking in the surroundings and its occupant with a distinctly neutral expression, and takes a seat. 

Perhaps, Steve thinks optimistically, if the psychologist complains about Bucky’s cell in regards to his mental health, Ross will be inclined to listen.

 It’s probably a little too optimistic. 

_“Sergeant Barnes,_ ” begins the psychologist smoothly, an attentive expression on his face. “ _I am your psychologist, sent by the United Nations to evaluate you; you my call me Dr. Zemo. How are you today?”_

Bucky says nothing and the shrink scribbles something down, flipping a few pages of his notebook. 

“ _Do you know where you are, Sergeant Barnes?_ ”

The only indication that Bucky is hearing what the doctor is saying is a barely perceptible twitch of the eye. 

_ “I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me, James.” _

“ _My name is Bucky_.”

Steve sneaks a glance across the room — it’s almost hard to watch the screen, and listen to the words and the silence in between. Ross, for whatever probably-messed-up reason, is the easiest to look at. Tony and Rhodey have got equal looks of sympathy written on their faces, and even though it’s not directed at Steve at all, he can’t stand it. Sharon looking mostly at her tablet in hand, typing something because, he supposes, this is just everyday to her. 

T’Challa’s face is one of intense concentration, scrutinising, and Steve wonders if he’s looking in Bucky for a guilty man or an innocent like he claims to be. Either way, he couldn’t blame the man. And there’s Natasha’s face imperceptible, though that in itself, now that Steve has known her long enough, is telling. He just has to trust it that she’s looking for, if not an innocent man for no man ever truly is, a person worth believing in. Or, failing that, just a person. She knows what it’s like, after all, to be treated like clockwork. 

“ _Tell me, Bucky. You’ve seen a great deal, haven’t you?_ ”

Sam sits next to him, still and completely tense from anxiety and some sort of dread. His fists are clenched tight, and he’s biting the inside of his cheek, eyes fixed on the screen as though, somehow, he can will himself to Bucky. Slowly, Steve reaches over one hand and rests it on Sam’s, squeezing it lightly and stroking his knuckles. Sam’s hand grasps it, almost automatically, like a lifeline. Almost as though the movement is unconscious. 

“ _I don’t wanna talk about it,_ ” Bucky murmurs, gaze dropping from the wall to the ground. 

Dr. Zemo smiles almost graciously, adjusting his glasses. Much more at ease for a civilian faced with someone known as ‘Winter Soldier.’ 

“ _You fear that, if you open your mouth, the horrors might never stop._ ” He unfolds his hands, shoulders relaxed and movements deliberate. The static of the feed in the background and every single screen makes the silence seem to stretch longer. Bending down beneath his chair, Dr Zemo reaches for his bag, an old brown leather. “ _Don’t worry, we only have to talk about one._ ”

Sam’s grip tightens reflexively, and Steve brushes his thumb across his knuckles in what he hopes to be a comforting movement. He hears Sam breathe out slowly, and makes himself do the same. 

He sees Bucky’s mouth begin to move on the screen, but nobody hears what he says because the screen flickers and the static bursts and suddenly the lights in the viewing room flicker black, a faint, high-pitched drone rings in his ears of echoed electricity. 

When the lights settle, the screens are still down, glowing faintly green, still hot. 

“Great. Come on, guys, get me eyes on Barnes. Go,” Ross sighs, as though this is just typical; Sam, though, and Steve himself, are already on their feet. 

Sharon, and he’d forgotten she was here for a moment, catches Sam’s arm and looks over at the both of them meaningfully. 

“FRIDAY, get me the source of that outage,” he hears Tony saying distantly.

“Sub-Level Five,” Sharon says under her breath, urgent. “East wing.”

They don’t waste any time. The way down to Sub-Level Five is too long. The corridors are traffic jams of agents and Sam and he are rushing down them full sprint. Steve kicks the door down because he’s not gonna wait on anything else.

They find the uncanny reflection of the field barrier gone, and Zemo lying on the ground wailing, “Help me, help me!” Mewling, crawling, pathetic.

Something in Steve’s blood twists, violent. 

“Get up,” he demands, and Zemo is too slow so Steve pulls him up and presses him into the wall, spitting. “Who are you? What do you want.”

There’s something delighting in the man’s expression, a light in his eyes, even though Steve can feel he’s just normal, at being shoved against the wall by Captain America. 

Zemo smiles, and it’s nothing so monstrous or insane or even charismatic like most other HYDRA people he’s encountered. Nothing like Rumlow or even Pierce. Just… frighteningly regular. “To see an empire fall.” 

There’s a shout, the Winter Soldier has Sam’s throat in his metal hand, and Sam is clawing at it furiously, gasping for air and Bucky’s name, and Steve releases his hold on Zemo to lunge at Bucky and save Sam. Everything seems a blur, none of the actions seem clear cut, but it’s like this — Bucky, no, the Winter Soldier and him, toe to toe — again. 

“Bucky,” he tries, desperate. “Come on, snap outta it. Bucky, come on—”

In the end, Bucky doesn’t snap out of it, the others arrive and although it doesn’t seem to make the bad situation worse, exactly, it doesn’t really help. Somewhere amongst the chaos, Zemo manages to scamper off. And Bucky, even as Steve is chasing him, even as his arms strain from the tension of pulling him back, not letting him go — he knows Bucky is already gone, and suddenly everything feels just too hopeless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry for the wait -- I've got an announcement to make!  
> \--> As you might know, this week (Oct 19. - 26.) is bidding week for Marvel Trumps Hate event - a fandom charity auction! It's relevant here because I'm auctioning a 5-15k fic! There are only THREE days left, so if you like how I write but I haven't written the exact thing you have always wanted, then:  
> check out my offer [ here](https://mercialachesis.tumblr.com/tagged/mth2019).  
> Or find another author/work that you really like, it's all for a worthy cause!  
> I am also offering fan art!
> 
> have a good day! <3 <3 <3

**Author's Note:**

> <3


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